Gaining A New Mask
by UndercoverSkeleton
Summary: Violet Morgan never expected her life to change so drastically in such a short amount of time. In the course of one night she loses her friends, her freedom, and her sanity. If she wants to survive a night in Arkham City, she's going to have to team up with some of Gotham's most infamous villains and do things that will haunt her for years to come. Currently being revised.
1. Into the Inferno

**A/N 12/22/14:** As I mentioned in my profile, I'm going back through this story and revising all of the chapters. While the plot will remain the same, I'm going to rewrite this story with a better idea of how I want things to go. Three years ago, I started writing this story on a single idea, not bothering to plan out anything ahead of time. I love this story, but the original is definitely more confusing/less consistent in some parts than it should to be (100% my fault for lack of planning). In this revised version, I plan on tweaking some things with Violet's character that will make her seem more consistent concerning her thought process throughout the story. This should be a noticeable change. I hope the new version will make more sense to my readers, both old and new. Enjoy!

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><p><strong>Into the Inferno<strong>

My name used to be Violet Morgan. I was a normal eighteen-year-old from a small town in Connecticut that barely anyone had ever heard of before everything went to hell. I had two of the best friends anyone could ask for-Harper and Channing. I'm sure most of you know their stories as well as you know mine by now. I hope that one day they'll read this and maybe understand what really happened that night-the night that changed me. My goal was never to make them hate me, to make them pariahs, or to even ruin their lives. I know at least one of them thinks I had some ulterior motive. I'm telling everyone right now, that's not true.

When I was a teenager I had a lot more going on in my head than I was comfortable telling anyone about at the time. That's not important though. What's important is what I'm about to tell you. This is my story. The story that was left out of the doctor's reports and the magazine articles that haunted my life for years after I left Gotham. I was not an evil person, at least not originally. Everything I thought I knew about myself was put to the test the second I arrived in Gotham City all those years ago. I've made mistakes, but who hasn't? I've killed people-in cold blood. If you think that doesn't haunt me, even now, you're wrong. I can never go back and fix all the trouble I caused, but I want everyone who reads this to know that I am not a coldhearted psychopath who ran away when things got too tough. You'll have to understand that I had to leave my current location out of this tale, but I want everyone to know that I don't ever plan on returning to Gotham City.

Nothing you are about to read is a fabrication, a lie, or a half-truth. It's been fifteen years since I've been in Gotham City, and I'm finally ready to tell my side of the story.

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><p><strong>11:53PM <strong>

I silently watch as the two cops approach the squad car. They get in without saying anything or looking back at me. They make an odd pair; the one driving is decidedly older than his partner. His thinning brown hair and rounded stomach give away his age, and also experience I suppose. In the passenger seat, a man not much older than myself sits staring through the windshield with a set jaw. He and his partner had been arguing before they got back into the car. My guess would be about me.

The car unexpectedly takes off, which causes me to lurch backwards in my seat. I take deep breaths, trying to keep myself calm, but now that we're definitely going somewhere, I'm close to having a panic attack. My legs keep bouncing up and down against the padded seat on their own accord. I'm positive I've never experienced anxiety like this in my entire life, which is saying something since I'm always worrying about something or other.

"So here's the deal, Miss Morgan." The older cop finally breaks the silence. "Under normal circumstances, we would just take you down to the GCPD. Unfortunately for you however, this isn't under normal circumstances." His partner shoots him a dirty look.

"How so?" I'm surprised by how calm I sound at the moment. I must be in shock. The younger cop turns his head so we make eye contact through the mesh barrier that separates the front and backseat. His dark brown eyes hold a kindness that his partner's don't. I see sympathy reflected back at me even through the darkness of the car. He breaks eye contact and turns around again.

"You realize where we have to take you right?" The cop driving asks me this as if it's humorous or something.

"She said she's from out of town." His partner answers for me with an edge to his voice. He's right though, I'm not from Gotham City and I have no idea what his partner is talking about. I haven't the slightest idea where I'm being taken.

"Oh, right." He clears his throat in an embarrassed sort of way, "Well, under the new protocol, we have to take any new arrests to the recently built facility in the city. From there you will be booked and get your one phone call just like you normally would at the station." He stops talking after this.

His words ring through my head like an echo. If I had been nervous before, I was downright terrified now. I know what the new "facility" is. The whole country does. I lean forward in my seat now, trying to stress how much this worries me, "Am I going to have to stay there until someone comes to bail me out? Because that could take all night. My parents live in Connecticut." No one knows that I've even been arrested yet. It might take a while for Harper and Channing to put two and two together in the morning too.

"I'm afraid so." It's the older cop who answers again. His partner opens his mouth now, but he immediately holds up his hand-the universal sign to shut up. "Like I said, you'll get your call when you get there. Maybe you shouldn't have gotten arrested in a strange city if you wanted to avoid all of these problems." There's no pity in his voice. His partner may feel bad for me but this guy sure as hell doesn't. He's right though; I shouldn't have gotten arrested. I lean back against the seat and close my eyes. An image of a cashier getting cracked over the head with a baseball bat immediately pops up behind my eyelids, prompting me to open my eyes again.

How did I go from a soon to be high school graduate to sitting in the backseat of a cop car in handcuffs? With that question in mind, the gravity of this whole situation hits me like a ton of bricks. My heart immediately starts pounding. I'm supposed to graduate in three months and then head to college in the fall. I guess I can kiss that goodbye now. There's no way I'll still be able to start the pre-med program I was accepted into now that I have a criminal record. As if that isn't terrible enough, I think the worst part of this will be when I have to explain to my parents why I was arrested in the first place. Just thinking about how disappointed they'll be in me makes me physically ill.

At this point, I'm barely holding back tears. My mind flashes to Harper and Channing. On top of everything else, I was going to lose my two best friends after this too. They won't want anything to do with me when they find out what I did. I force myself to focus on the buildings rushing past us as we drive farther away from the more populated areas of the city. I watch as people hurry along the streets to get out of the cold. Or maybe it's to avoid being mugged? Gotham has a terrible reputation for being one of the country's most dangerous cities between the stabbings, robberies, and oh yeah costumed villains running around.

I was hesitant to even say yes when Harper and Channing first approached me in school and asked me to go to Gotham city with them. For one, it meant I would have to miss some school, which I hated doing. As much as I love my friends, we have next to nothing in common. They're outgoing, bubbly, and love trying new things. Meanwhile, I prefer staying at home and study or mess around on my computer for hours at a time. I guess the only thing we really have in common is our lack of other friends.

Harper and Channing are twins who come from an extremely wealthy family. While I'm not entirely sure what their father does, I know their mother stays at home, shops, or drinks herself into a coma before noon on a day-to-day basis. He, however, travels out of town on "business trips" a lot. I guess I could ask Harper or Channing about it sometime if they ever want to speak to me again. It's kind of funny; I've known my friends since we were eleven and I think I've only met their dad once. Their family is pretty much the exact opposite of mine.

My family is relatively close knit. My parents have normal jobs and have always been there for me when I need them. While they tend to be protective, they're never strict with me. Hell, I've never even been grounded before. They trust me enough to know I'm not prone to doing typical crazy teenage things. That used to be my sister's job. I swallow at this thought, but my mouth is conveniently bone dry at the moment. My sister never tried to rob a convenience store that's for sure.

I can't believe I got myself into this situation. I mean I wasn't even smart about it. Normally, I pride myself in being an intelligent person. I mean, I don't have a lot of common sense, but I'm not dumb. Honestly, I didn't even remember leaving the condo we're staying at. When I tried to explain this to the cops, I could tell they didn't believe me. Honestly, I wouldn't believe me either. I understand how they could think I was lying; it seemed like a really dumb excuse. It literally took the cops two minutes to find me after I left the store; they just happened to be one block over from where I was. I matched the description they were given perfectly: short, brunette female on foot wearing a leather jacket, tight pants, and black boots. They caught me red-handed; I was holding the bag of money I stole behind my back in a lame attempt to hide it.

"We're approaching the facility now." It's the older cop again. He must like doing the talking. The way he says "facility" so calmly makes it seem like it's some secure place that they're taking me to and not the sick slaughterhouse that it really is.

I start getting very hot all of the sudden. I think I might really be having a panic attack. I know what goes on in this city-the corruption, the greed, the psychopaths running around blowing up buildings and murdering innocent people for fun. I also know about Batman. He's been around for a while now, but I remember thinking how weird it was when I first heard of him. It doesn't say much about a city when its people think more highly of a man dressed like a bat than they do of their whole police force.

"We're here." I don't know which one of them said this; I was still in my own little world of anxiety in the backseat. The car finally comes to a rolling stop, which swiftly brings me back to reality. We're parked in front of a massive cement structure on the outskirts of the city. As I look through the windshield, I realize these are the walls of the prison. The younger cop gets out of the car first, coming around to my side and opening the door for me. I slide as slowly as I can across the seat, wanting to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. All too soon I run out of seating and have to get out of the car.

The older cop walks ahead of us, towards the entrance of the facility. His partner, meanwhile, removes my handcuffs. I know I won't need them once I'm behind the walls of this place. That's how open-air prisons work. As we walk towards my doom, the air whips around us. It might be my imagination, but I don't remember it being this cold out earlier tonight. I mean, I don't really remember when I left the condo, but I know when I was at the convenience store I wasn't this cold. My leather jacket is obviously more for fashion than function.

A guard approaches our little entourage, walking out from among the shadows cast by the massive walls. I feel the young cop's hand tighten on my shoulder, which he's using to guide me. As soon as I get my first good look at the guard, I understand why. He's dressed in head to toe black with a balaclava mask covering the lower half of his face. My eyes drop to the high-powered gun he's holding in his hands. I'm not sure why a prison guard needs a gun that powerful, but then again, I'm probably about to find out. Thinking about this makes me feel faint, so I force my eyes away from the guard and onto the steel structure hanging on the side of the cement wall.

I don't realize the older cop is done speaking with the guard until I hear his voice directly in front of me. "Everything is settled. This is where we part ways, Miss Morgan." Almost as an afterthought he adds, "Be careful." I feel strong hands grab my shoulders as I watch the two cops walk back to their cruiser. The younger one glances back at me with those sympathetic eyes one last time. The hands that grip my shoulders belong to two prison guards. They begin escorting me towards the entrance of the prison.

I glance up at the cement wall one final time. The last thing I see before I pass over the threshold of the prison is an image that will be seared into my brain for the rest of my life. The steel structure attached to the side of the facility displayed two words: Arkham City.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own any sort of Batman game.

_"Oh don't be such a spoil sport Vi! It's just shopping, it won't kill you!" Channing chimed from my right side, where she was holding tightly on my arm and guiding me towards the shopping district. _

_ "Yeah, plus it's on us! Just take it as our belated birthday gift to you! You need a new wardrobe anyway Violet. Sorry to say, but you kind of have a horrible fashion sense." Harper said from my left side, mirroring her twin by dragging me as well._

_ I glanced down at what I was wearing. I had on boots, skinny jeans, and a deep purple sweater that I thought brought out the color in my hazel eyes nicely. This caused me to glance at the other two. They did have a great fashion sense; I'll give them that._

_ Channing was wearing black ankle boots, black leggings, and a bright red sweater dress that showed off her model like body. Her platinum wavy hair seemed to float behind her. Harper on the other hand opted to wear flats, black hose, and a darkish pink skirt with a cream turtleneck on top, which was covered with a pale pink sweater. Just like her sister, she looked like she was ready to strut down a runway._

_ Now I knew I didn't dress as nice as they did, but I liked my mature, professional look. "And I've already told you guys, I appreciate it, I really do, but shopping isn't my thing. Can't you guys just enjoy the shopping and I'll just sit back and tell you how pretty everything is? Please?" I had resorted to begging at this point. _

_ "Nope. No way you're getting out of this one Vi." Harper chimed, causing me to groan. _

_ "Ooh! This store looks promising!" Channing squealed from beside me, finally releasing me to sprint off ahead. I shook my head, these two were probably the two vainest people in our high school back in Connecticut, but what can you do?_

_ Harper was the more laid back of the two, so she continued walking arm in arm with me into the high-end fashion store. There was literally nothing I could afford in this place. I felt like all of the store's workers were judging me as my two best friends tried on basically every article of clothing in the store. _

_ "What do you think of this one Vi?" Channing asked as she turned around in a crimson party dress that fit her perfectly. I gave a smile and said, "It looks perfect on you!" That caused her to smile._

_ "Here, I want you to try on this one! It'll look good on you and plus, it won't make you look shorter than you already are." I knew she hadn't meant it to hurt my feelings, but it sometimes hurt when they said stuff like that. I knew I wasn't a 5'8", platinum haired, blue-eyed beauty like those two._

_ When she said this I looked up at the offered dress, a short black one with a low cut front and a belt around the waist. I began to shake my head but she literally pulled me out of the chair, handed me the dress, and shoved me into the dressing room._

_ I stared down at the article of clothing for a second, glaring at it then finally decided just to try it on or else I would never hear the end of it. _

_Once it was on I walked out of the dressing room to see Channing in a different, navy blue dress standing there clapping her hands together childishly. "You look ah-mazing in that dress Violet. I'm serious!" _

_She pointed to the mirror that was behind me and I turned around to check it out. It did fit me nicely. The belt in the middle added a nice touch to accentuate my curves. I wasn't fat by any means, but I wasn't stick thin either. I looked healthy. _

_Channing had been right; it didn't make me look like a midget. It stopped a little above mid thigh and didn't drown me. _

_Channing came to stand behind me, towering over my 5'1" frame. "You're getting this dress. I'm serious, you look gorgeous in it." She complimented politely._

_Smiling, I went to change out of it, feeling pretty good about it until I saw the price tag. This dress cost $895.00. That was insane. There was no way I was letting them buy this for me._

_So as we were being checked out, me not buying anything once I persuaded them to put that dress back, I decided to wait out on the sidewalk. They had bought half the store so it was taking a while._

_This city was honestly buzzing with life. It was so different than our small town we came from. Funny though, I didn't really miss home. I liked it here in the city._

_An explosion somewhere in the city interrupted my thoughts. It was a big one too. The ground shook a little bit and at first I thought it had been an earthquake, but then I saw the smoke. _

_I heard sirens not even a minute later as a squad of police cars zoomed by. The people on the sidewalk stopped to watch the scene. _

_ A few minutes later Channing and Harper came out of the store looking a little grim. "What's wrong?" I asked tentatively._

_ "We're going to cut this shopping trip short." Harper said sadly. I gave her a questioning look._

_ "We saw the explosion from the counter in there. The lady said it was probably best for us to head back to the hotel as quickly as possible. Apparently she thought it could be one of those costumed freaks who run around here." They thought some villain blew up that building? What was with this city?_

_ "Uh, yeah okay." I replied, letting them lead me back to the hotel. I was horrible with directions, and they were a lot smarter than they led on. _

_ Later that evening we learned that a criminal named Black Mask, who had recently escaped from Arkham City blew up that building. He was caught and carted right back off to jail though, so I guess that lady had overreacted for nothing._

_ We had gone to the hotel's restaurant and had a nice night. When they went to bed, it was time for me to play. I walked out the door, not receiving my birthday present from the two of them, a certain black dress._

Being drug into Arkham City was terrifying. It was literally another world on the other side of that wall.

The two guards drug me straight into the city where I got my first glimpse at the inmates. Some were just roaming around in their orange jumpsuits, but some came over to see what was going on.

Needless to say, I was absolutely terrified. What was worst of all, when they saw that the guards were dragging in a woman they started getting a little wild. I heard everything from catcalls to promises of rape.

They couldn't honestly just throw me in here! These creeps would eat me alive! Besides wasn't this an all men's prison?

I wasn't sure where the guards were taking me until I saw they were leading me over to a huge industrial looking door with the word _Tyger Security_ written on it. Luckily the inmates were smart enough not to try to follow us. They seemed afraid of the guards.

Speaking of which, one of my oh so gentle tour guides took out a device which caused the door to open like a garage door. We stepped through and I noticed that this must be where all of the new inmates are checked in.

It appears that I wasn't the only anomaly being checked in tonight however. All of the inmates sitting against a wall were shouting at a black haired man walking a little ahead of me in a nice suit.

"Hey Wayne! You're gonna be my bitch!" Wayne? As in Bruce Wayne, the man who basically owns Gotham? That's a little unsettling to think that they caught him and thought they could bring him in.

From my left I heard someone start making a kissy noise directed at me. But no it couldn't just be left at that, "Hey sweetie wanna come over here and keep me a little warmer?" I tried as best as I could to ignore the man who said this. _Keep cool Violet, just keep your head down and _don't _make eye contact._

This Wayne guy turned around when he said this to see whom it was directed to, since that would've been a little weird for that comment to be directed towards him. When he caught sight of me it looked like his eyes widened a bit.

He looked like he had been through hell. And here I was thinking they had been rough with me. His suit was a little dirty and he looked like his face was black and blue in some parts. Poor guy was _definitely_ out of his comfort zone.

"Wayne! Line A now! Come on move it!" Another armed guard yelled from over where a couple of cons were lined up. All three turned to look at the new arrivals.

I figured maybe I could manage to keep close to Wayne, someone who wasn't a convict, but no such luck. My two escorts decided to take me over to an empty holding cell on the far right of the room that was obscured in the dark.

One of them opened the door while the other unceremoniously threw me to the ground. And I do mean threw. I landed on my right wrist, which caused me to squeak in pain. I was going to die in here. I can't deal with pain. The inmates will prey on me because of it.

It seemed as though I was lucky on one part though. At least there weren't any rape driven convicts in here with me. Somehow I didn't think the guards really did that out of kindness though. They seem so mindless. And maybe I'm overthinking, but I swear they all look alike.

To my left, outside the cage, I noticed a scuffle going on. I honestly didn't know how I missed that as I walked in, but it looked like a man with dark dress pants, a striped button up, overalls and white gloves on was wielding what looked like a piece of a chair at three of the guards.

I didn't know who this guy was but I kind of felt bad for him. That was one fight he was going to lose. Just as he smacked one over the head with the chair, another moved in a tased him with a rod. He dropped to the ground in pain and started getting the crap beat out of him.

Poor guy, he wasn't having a good night either. I sat back on the bench in my little cell, waiting for someone to acknowledge my existence and let me make my call. Little did I know I would never be making that phone call.

I glanced out of the cage as the convicts in like A were escorted somewhere else, most likely to be released into the streets. I shivered as I thought about that. Over by the door they were just led out of was a man in a white lab coat and round glasses. He glanced over at me and said something to the guard next to him before walking away.

Just as I was beginning to daydream the door to my cell was opened. Here I thought it was someone to take me to a phone. Instead, a guard threw someone in onto the floor, causing him to groan.

Upon closer inspection I realized it was the same guy who had been wielding the chair. I thought he was unconscious for a second because he wasn't moving. I hope he isn't dead. That would seriously push me over the edge at this point.

I was looking at him waiting for him to get up when I realized two things. One, the suspenders I thought he had on weren't suspenders at all; they were gun holsters. Two, there was something wrong with his head. It looked like it was scorched or something.

I had been staring at his head wondering what was wrong with it when he abruptly rolled onto his back and let out a loud groan.

His face! It wasn't just the back of his head that had that scorched look it was his whole head. I couldn't tell what color his eyes were since he had them closed at the moment, but his entire face was a charred black color. It didn't even look like skin. His mouth was what was the creepiest thing of all.

Where his lips should have been was just blackened gums leading down to some yellowing teeth. Who was this guy?

Finally after another minute or so, the guy slowly sat up, holding his head. He looked around the cell, not noticing me sitting in the back corner, then started standing up. He towered over my small frame, even sitting down. He was easily 6' if not a little taller.

He seemed like he was hurt by the way he was clutching onto his side. Probably a few cracked ribs from the way those guards were beating the crap out of him. He prodded his side carefully before seeming to flinch.

Now was probably a good time to let him know he wasn't alone in here. "Are you okay?" I asked quietly. He spun around and reached up to one of the holsters where a gun was supposed to be. This only seemed to cause him more pain however because I could see him wince, even though he was trying to hide it.

When he turned around I noticed that not all of his face was covered in that blackness. Above his left eye was a small patch of skin showing with some brown hair poking out of it. So there was actually a face behind there.

His brown eyes finally focused on me before saying, "Oh, I'm just dandy." He began approaching me, causing me to tense up. I didn't know what this guy was capable of. But then he just sat down on the bench a little ways away from me.

He looked out the cell door at some of the guards still escorting prisoners around the room. "They're going to regret catching me again." He muttered to himself.

"Again?" I asked before I could stop myself. I really needed to learn how to keep my mouth shut. This caused him to slowly and creepily turn his head towards me again.

"Yes, again." His voice was rough, gravelly almost. He looked at me closer now and said, "You aren't from around here are you?" Now that was an odd question to ask. It wasn't like I was wearing a cowboy hat and boots.

I shook my head no and he said, "I figured not. You wouldn't be sitting there so calmly if you were." I wouldn't exactly say I was sitting here calmly but whatever.

"Why is that?" Curiosity got the better of me once again. _Curiosity killed the cat Vi._ I couldn't tell for sure because his mouth seemed to be set in a permanent position, but it looked like he was smirking.

"You really have no idea who I am? Don't you watch the news?" I didn't know what this had to do with anything but then I got to thinking. Why would he be on the news? I looked at him more closely and finally realized I had seen this guy before.

"You're that guy who blew up the building yesterday!" I assumed it was yesterday now anyway. He let out a huff that sounded like a laugh and said, "Yeah, the name's Black Mask." Black Mask. I let that repeat in my head a while. No wonder they called him black mask. It was a really appropriate name.

"So who are you anyway? And what did you do so bad that landed you in this hellhole?" He asked out of curiosity, or what I assumed was curiosity. It was hard to tell with him.

"My name's Violet." No need to give a last name. "I uh robbed a convenience store." He burst out laughing as soon as these words left my mouth. "You robbed a store? What is this your first felony? Tell me you at least used a gun." He looked pointedly at me again.

"Yeah it was my first felony actually and my last. But no I didn't use a gun for your information, I used a baseball bat." If I thought he laughed last time, it was nothing compared to now. "I broke a kid's jaw with it I'll have you know." I didn't know why I felt the need to prove myself to this murdering psycho, but I guess I just wanted someone to talk to.

After he was done laughing he said, "No it isn't." He said this with such conviction that I didn't know how he could possibly know whether I broke the kids jaw or not. "No, it was definitely broken." I said.

He shook his head, "I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about you saying this was your last felony." It wasn't like I was looking to make a career out of this. "Once you become a criminal, you never go back. Especially in this city." He turned back around to looking out of the cell, leaving me to my thoughts.

He was wrong. I was stronger than all of these other criminals. Wasn't I?

A/N: Okay it's going to start to get real interesting next chapter. Please R&R though I'd like to know what I'm doing right and wrong! Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman in any way, shape, or form.

We had been sitting in this cell for a few hours. Or at least I thought it had been a few hours, I wasn't sure. I kept a close watch on the masked man sitting a ways away from me. The last thing I needed was to nod off and be attacked. He _was _a wanted fugitive after all.

It had gotten eerily quiet in the room we were in. There were still a couple of guards mulling about, but as far as inmates go we were the only two left. I hadn't realized it before, but all of the noise in the room had been keeping me calm. Now, there was just silence, the type of silence that left your ears buzzing. This left me with nothing to do but think.

Being the chatterbox that I was, I hadn't said another word to my 'bunkmate' since his remark about me becoming a career felon.

I didn't know why, but that really bothered me. I knew what I had done tonight had been terrible, but it gave me a rush. All my life I had been a sheltered child, not interested in the outside world. But now, well things had changed now. I didn't exactly know what had changed. I just felt weird. I got the sinking feeling that I didn't feel as guilty as I should.

No. I couldn't think like that. I needed to think about happier thoughts. Oh who am I kidding, I'm an emotional mess right now.

Every time I started thinking about something to distract myself, my thoughts always ended up back to my parents. I already knew I was a disappointment to them in more ways than one, but I had really gone off the deep end now. The last time I felt this bad was after the accident. The accident where I-

"Hey!" I was ripped from my thoughts by a hiss of a whisper coming from the man beside me. He had his head down, and at first I thought he was talking to himself, but then I noticed he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" I said in a monotone. I really didn't want or need to be talking to this guy right now.

"Shh! Keep it down. Now listen, and listen good. When they come and get you, take your time leaving the cell. Got it?" He growled out the last part as a command. I scrunched my face up and gave him a confused look. _What the hell is he talking about?_

The thought had just crossed my mind when one of the guards came waltzing over to the cell door. My cell buddy glanced up at him. "Stay where you are Sionis. We aren't ready for you yet." I didn't know what he was talking about, or who Sionis was, but by the tone of his voice, it didn't sound good.

"Morgan, we're ready to take you now." He said this in an emotionless voice that sent a chill down my spine. There was seriously something off about this guard.

I slowly stood up off the bench and started shuffling towards the door. I didn't know why I was listening to this mask guy, well Sionis I guess, but for some reason I felt the need to.

"C'mon, hurry up kid." The guard spit out harshly. I felt anger surge up inside me as he called me 'kid'. I was _not_ a child. As I walked past Black Mask I saw him staring intently at my face. When I made it to the door, the guard grabbed my arm harshly and began to pull me out into the area between the two cages.

As soon as the guard had touched me I knew something was wrong. Somehow I think I knew that when he said they were "ready" for me, he didn't mean it in the way I thought he did.

Everything happened so quickly. While the guard still had one of my arms in a vice grip, he turned around to lock the cell again. I turned my head to watch him do this, but was shocked when I saw a body slam into the half shut cell door and pin the guard against the wall of the cage opposite.

"I told you people! Nobody captures Black Mask and lives!" The Sionis man spit in his harsh voice before snatching a holstered gun off the guard and shooting the man point blank. I was standing there in absolute shock and terror as the madman turned to me.

_This is it. I'm going to die. My parents don't even know where I am._ I closed my eyes tightly, waiting for the shot that didn't come. Just as I was wondering what he was doing I felt a gloved hand grab my upper arm tightly as he pulled my back into his chest.

"What're you doing?" I asked in a panic.

The only response I got was a curt, "Shut up." As sirens started going off around us, he drug me off towards the back of the room where Wayne had gone through a set of double doors. He was taking me out _there_! He's finally lost it!

As I was drug to the back of the room, doors began bursting open all around us. Men in those uniforms began running out, pointing guns at us. I could see their mouths moving but over the sirens I couldn't hear what they were saying.

That's when I felt the cold tip of a gun being held against my temple. "Any closer and this girl gets her brains blown everywhere." So he was just using me as a little pawn in his little game and I had been stupid enough to fall for it. The guards slowed in their advance a bit, but were still pointing several weapons at us.

Black Mask decided he couldn't just keep him mouth shut while he was ahead and had to spit out, "And I don't think you'll want to have that spread throughout the media. How would that look on your boss?" What was this guy thinking? He was blatantly mocking armed guards who would shoot us without a second thought, at least in my opinion.

The alarms were still blaring while we were standing in front of the open doorway that led to what looked like an elevator. He still had the gun to my head with his arm in a tight hold across my chest. I'm sure with as tight of a hold he had on me that he could probably hear my heart about to beat out of my chest.

As I looked out at the dozen or so guards pointing their guns at us I noticed how none of them looked like they were panicking. They looked so calm and collected that it was creepy. The look in their eyes was similar to something you would see in a lion's eyes as they chased down some poor gazelle.

Suddenly the alarms stopped and I realized one of the guards had been talking into a headpiece. Almost at the same time, a TV that I hadn't seen before came to life on the right hand wall. The screen itself took up about half the wall it was so big.

In the middle of the screen was that doctor I had seen before. Now that I had a good view of him I realized just how strange this man was. He was bald, but had a dark brown beard. Behind circular glasses were two beady eyes that were calmly observing the scene in front of him. He must have cameras set up in the room or something.

"Ah, Mr. Sionis. It would be most unwise for you to try to escape again. Here I thought you would be more… well-behaved this time." I didn't like this man, whoever he was. He spoke in a haughty tone that came across as someone who knew something no one else did. But more so than anything, he seemed like the type of person who liked to talk just to hear themselves talk. I found that usually people like that had a way of thinking that they were put on earth just in order to be better than others.

"I told you last time Strange, I'm not the Joker. I'm not helping you with your little plan." At this point I had no idea what these two were talking about. All I knew was that I had a madman pointing a gun to my head in a situation I shouldn't even be in. I should be back at the condo sleeping in my warm bed. Too bad I had to go out and blow any chance of that happening anytime soon. The next 'bed' I would probably be in was a riverbed. With a bullet in my head.

"So you did. It's a shame really." The doctor countered. He seemed like he was about to turn away but decided to make one more wise crack, "And shielding yourself with a child….how pathetic." He paused one final time. "You know what to do men." The screen cut to black again.

The silence from the TV being shut off only lasted for a moment before the room was alive with banging. A split second before everything went to hell, I was thrown through the open doorway with Black Mask still latched onto me. It took a minute for me to realize what the heck was going on.

_They opened fire!_ The gunfire was cracking behind us, as I was drug through some tunnel and into a freight elevator. He shoved me in and punched the down arrow just as the guards came charging around the corner. There were so many of them and a really short distance between them and the elevator.

I threw myself against the left hand wall, out of the doorway, just as an onslaught of bullets came pouring into the elevator. I threw my hands over my head in an attempt to shield myself from the onslaught of bullets raining into the elevator. By the time the doors slid shut and we were moving down, the whole back wall of the elevator was covered in holes. It was amazing the elevator still worked.

My heart was racing as I tried to control my breathing. The small space in the elevator wasn't helping either._ In…and out. Repeat. In…and out._ I was focusing on this when I heard Black Mask start chuckling darkly. I didn't like something about that demented chuckle of his. It was almost mocking.

He moved in front of the doors now and glanced at me before saying, "I'd suggest you get up and be ready to run." I didn't move. I didn't want to run. I'd just been drug out of a prison. If I wasn't considered a fugitive before I sure as hell was now. A fugitive. That's actually what I was now. Everyone would think that it was me who tried to escape from the prison, not me just being drug like a puppet.

He looked at me fully now as I just continued to sit there. I wasn't leaving this elevator. If I just stayed put and they found me here, not running away, maybe they'd let me go. If I didn't run, then they would have to believe that I hadn't done anything wrong. I mean, I had a whole room of guards witness me being drug out of there. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

The elevator began to slow as we approached what I assumed was the ground floor of the building. I leant my head back against the cold steel wall of the elevator. The coldness seemed to relieve me; it told me that I was still alive. I brought my knees to my chest and hugged them, determined not to move. That plan had been working well until I felt that all too familiar gloved hand grab my arm again.

In front of us, the doors dinged open. Once again I found myself being drug out of the small box and surprisingly out into what looked like some kind of alley. I hadn't expected that when the doors opened.

The air was chillingly cold. If it was possible, it felt like the temperature had dropped even more since we had been in there. My leather jacket wasn't doing much to help that either.

As we walked further into the alley and began moving through sketchy looking side alleys, I started getting a sinking feeling. This whole 'city' smelled horrible. Maybe it was just the alleys we were moving in, but I smelled the overwhelming scent of urine mixed with the smell of blood. I honestly didn't know how Gotham didn't completely stink of this place's filth.

Every building we passed looked both completely rundown and deserted or so creepy that you didn't even want to go inside and see what you may find. I had no idea just how many inmates there were in this place, but with a combined mental asylum and prison, I was sure that they were aware of our presence more than we were theirs.

After a while the initial shock of being drug around again set it and I started digging my heels into the ground in an attempt to throw this crazy off of me. "Let go! No! Stop!" I tried clawing at his hand, but it just tightened even more. That'll leave a bruise.

I couldn't even fight this guy off. I had no physical strength at all. My muscles, or lack thereof, were about as tough as jelly. No on second thought, jelly was probably tougher than me. I found myself trying to dig my short nails into his skin to get him to loosen up his grip, but no such luck. He didn't even seem phased by it.

That left me with one choice, one I wouldn't particularly have liked to use, "HELP! SOMEBODY, I'M BEING KID-" Just as we had entered another dark alleyway a ways away from the building we were held in, I was slammed up against a brick wall. My head connected hard with it and at once black specks began to sprout in front of my vision. I had to focus to see the blackened face only inches from my own. When I did manage to focus I was met with the sight of the gun pointing at my head again with a gloved hand placed firmly over my mouth.

"Shut up! Are you seriously slow or something?" He asked in a harsh whisper. I took personal offense to that. Where did he get off insulting me like that? Did he not even comprehend the situation we were in? Maybe he was okay with being a wanted felon, but I sure as hell wasn't. Plus, I _despised_ when people tried to insult my intelligence. I may be a lot of things, but I wasn't stupid.

I gave him a death glare as he began looking frantically around the alleyway. "Now, when I take my hand off of your mouth, you're going to be a quiet little girl or else you'll end facing your death in this alley. Got it?" I understood the implied threat of being shot. I glared at him for a moment, but finally nodded my head. Or as much as I could with it being smashed up against a brick wall.

He let go and began quickly walking farther into the alley, away from the building we had just run from. I didn't know where else to go. I didn't want to go with him. I _should_ just go back to wherever it was we just came from, but that would mean I'd have to find my way back there. Like I said, I was horrible with directions. Plus, who knows what kinds of people were roaming these streets. It was bad enough that I had been drug around by this guy all night, I didn't need something even worse happening to me by some other even crazier person in this place.

Before I had a chance to make up my mind, I heard that rough voice from the end of the alleyway said, "Look kid, I honestly don't give a damn where you go, but a tip of advice? Don't go back there. Don't go anywhere near there if you want to continue living." He said this with a foreboding tone to his voice. He seemed to know something that I didn't.

That peaked my curiosity. I really was too curious for my own good. If I hadn't been so curious about how it would feel to rob a store, I wouldn't be here to begin with. If I weren't curious, I would still have a chance at a future. I subconsciously started walking his way again while asking, "What is that supposed to mean?"

He looked at me oddly before saying, "You didn't honestly think they were just going to let you call your parents and have them bail you out did you?" The way he said this made me feel stupid. That was actually exactly what I thought was going to happen. I wasn't about to let him know that I thought that though. When I didn't say anything, he seemed to interpret what I was thinking.

Chuckling, he took a menacing step towards me, "My, you are the naïve one aren't you?" I didn't like being patronized and I immediately put up my shields. "You do realize they weren't just shooting at me don't you? They didn't care if you got shot. Do you know why?" He asked in a frightening tone. I didn't move. I was like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Because the second you stepped through those gates, you were sentenced to your death. One way or another, you weren't going to be leaving this place alive; or at least not with your sanity." I was so lost at this point, I felt like crying. The stress of this night was seriously going to take a toll on me.

"But you'd be lucky if they decided to just kill you. The ones who die quickly are the luckiest. See, Strange likes to play with his prey before he kills them." He shook his head again, almost sympathetically. "The unlucky ones are experimented on by the good doctor. Most inmates who are taken in through those doors are never seen again." He spoke this with no emotion.

To say that I was disturbed was an understatement. No, the right word would be mortified. And here I was contemplating going back to that place!

Once again, the criminal in front of me turned around and began walking around the corner of the alley to go out into the streets. Well if he thought I was just staying here after that, he really _was_ out of his mind.

I began to follow him, but slowed as another thought popped into my head. Why did I trust this man? I mean, obviously he had done bad things to end up in this place. Just yesterday he had blown up a building! Plus, I wasn't exactly a trusting person to begin with.

But then again, he _did_ get me out of that place. Not very gently, but he did. I trotted ahead to fall in step behind him when we stepped into the street. This place just looked slimy. The street was wet with snowfall and there were piles of garbage everywhere. I'd hate to think what kind of personal hygiene these people had.

A few convicts were mulling about by a brick wall crudely talking about something or other. I thought we were going to turn around and avoid the situation entirely. I mean, yeah Black Mask had a gun, but there were five of these guys and they were pretty big. To my surprise however, when they saw the man in front of me, they stopped talking and quickly moved out of the streets.

I honestly hadn't been expecting anything like that to happen. I looked at this mystery of a man and wondered just what kind of reputation he had here in Gotham. I didn't even know if he was a terrorist who blew up buildings or a murderer who just did it for fun. The convicts had split pretty quickly. That had to signify something right?

He seemed to know where he was going, so I continued following him. The way I looked at it, if I wanted any chance of surviving in this place, I needed to hang onto somebody. Black Mask would have to do I guess, until I found some way to get out of here anyway.

Besides, I did owe this man my life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** As always, I don't own anything with the label Batman on it.

**A/N:** Thank you everyone who has reviewed this story so far! Your reviews really mean a lot to me! Also, I'm sorry for the late update, but school has started back up and everyone knows how school is. I promise I'll try to update at least once a week!

I didn't know how long we had been walking, all I knew was that the farther and farther we walked into this place, the more I hated it. There were convicts everywhere. Apparently the building we had just come from was no man's land because the farther away from the building we got, the more convicts started popping up.

Black Mask wove in and out of the dark alleyways like an expert, managing to keep any unwanted visitors away from us. Thank goodness too, because every time a convict would look at me, they would see the man in front of me and decide to keep their distance. That just led to a lot of unanswered questions that I planned on asking at some point.

However, as far as I was concerned this man just helped me escape my possible death, and to me that was the only reason I was following a convict. _Convict. _Well, it wasn't like I wasn't one now anyway. Birds of a feather I guess.

It seemed that the farther we walked into the city, the colder it continued to get. Although my partner, if I could call him that, seemed to be perfectly fine with his shirt's sleeves rolled up, my leather jacket was doing nothing to keep the cold out. I hadn't even realized how bad I was shivering until just now.

I glanced around to take in all of the dank buildings again and noticed a sort of trend. The buildings were all in a state of disrepair, but some were worse than others. This place must've been pretty bad before the giant cement walls blocked off the area.

Some of the buildings still had business signs on them. Then there were buildings with bright neon signs lit up above doorways. One particularly crude sign was boldly broadcasting, "Live Nudes". I shuddered to think of what would happen if there actually were strippers left in this place. _Probably the same thing that's going to happen to me at some point or another. _There was really no point in being optimistic; I was screwed either way.

Somewhere off to my right a phone started ringing. Whoever would want to call a phone in this place was beyond me. I unconsciously slowed down my pace to try and see if I could see where the phone was. I was kind of tempted to pick the phone up and see who was calling.

"Don't ever pick up a phone in this place. That's another way to get yourself killed." My head snapped around to where Black Mask was still walking ahead of me. I shook my head and trotted to catch up to him. I wondered how on earth picking up a phone could kill you?

At this point I had no idea where this strange man was taking me, but it seemed to be farther into the city. I never realized how big this place was!

Another oddity I found in this place was the choice of…decor? I wasn't really sure how else to put it. It seemed like on every building in this place there was some sort of question mark either lit up or spray painted onto a brick wall.

Now for as long as we had been walking I kept my mouth shut, but for the millionth time my curiosity got the better of me. "Uh, what's up with all of the question marks?" I used my finger to gesture all around me as he glanced back at me.

He gave me an odd look and said, "You really aren't from Gotham are you?" Wow way to answer my question Nostradamus. We kept walking for a little while before he said anything else.

"The villains in Gotham aren't exactly your normal criminals. You at least know that right?" he asked skeptically. Once again I didn't like the way he talked to me as if I was some small child.

I rolled my eyes behind his back and answered with a short, "No kidding." I was following a gun wielding man wearing a mask. If that wasn't enough proof of how weird the criminals here were, I don't know what is.

"All of us have some sort of calling card, some sort of alter ego." This time he looked back at me and gestured to him mask covered face. "You can see what mine is." He then turned back around and pointed to a lit up question mark hanging above something glowing in a round cage. "That's the work of just another one of Gotham's criminals."

I found myself nodding to myself, taking this in. Whenever I did get out of here I'd have to do some research on all of these colorful characters. I wondered just how many villains there were in this city.

Before I had a chance to ask him what the villain's name was, there was an explosion from somewhere behind us. I looked back over the roof of a building at the end of the alleyway to see smoke rising through the air. My eyes drifted down to where the smoke was coming from and I noticed the building that was burning looked like a church.

"Who blows up a church?" I mumbled more to myself than anything. I wasn't exactly a religious person, not going to church myself, but I knew blowing up churches, hospitals, and schools were usually frowned upon.

"Probably Joker." Black Mask spit out from in front of me. The venom in his voice when he said _Joker_ was enough to tell me he didn't like the man. At my clueless look, he rolled his eyes. "I'm not even going there." He grumbled. I was left in the dark as to who the Joker was, but he didn't seem very funny.

It felt like I was in some foreign country and everyone was speaking a language I didn't know. I didn't know my way around these streets, I didn't know the man I was following, I didn't know who all of these villains were, and most importantly, I didn't know why I acted out like a crazy person and landed myself here.

We got to the end of the alleyway when his arm shot out in front of me. Not paying attention, I ran straight into it a let out an, "Oof!"

He shushed me before I heard someone say, "Did you hear something?" The voice sounded close. Closer than I would've liked.

"Nah. Probably just one of those political freaks locked up with us. They're always sobbing in the alleys. Pathetic." A second voice said.

With his arm still in front of me, Black Mask began walking backwards, taking me with him. Once we were back in the darkness of the alleyway I saw two men carrying high-powered guns walk past the entrance. Those must've been the voices we heard.

They were both wearing some odd outfits. One was wearing what looked like a black and white ski mask with a puffer coat. Both had on the same camouflage themed outfits. Another interesting thing however was that on the sleeves of their jackets were little pictures of penguins? That's not exactly the symbol of manliness? Penguins were probably the cutest animals on earth.

Once they were out of ear shot, mask lowered his arm and I asked what I had been wondering that whole time, "Why were we hiding from those guys? I thought you had some pull in this place?" Everyone else we'd run into thus far had cowered away from us as soon as they saw my masked accomplice.

"They have their own allegiance." I raised an eyebrow at this explanation. He shook his head and said, "You really don't know anything. Okay look, in this place usually everyone sides up with one of the major criminals. As of now there are three major powerhouses. Two-Face, the Joker, and the man those two work for, the Penguin." So this whole place was basically three giant gangs' breeding ground.

"And this Penguin guy…" I trailed off wondering what made him so frightening.

"Isn't someone to be messed with." Black Mask finished for me. "He and I have done business before. If I had to side with anyone in this place it would be him." I opened my mouth to once again ask the question of why we were hiding then, but he beat me to it, "But that doesn't mean that his men are trustworthy. Many of them are trigger happy and would probably love to get their hands on someone like you." That shut me up. I'd made it this far; I wasn't going to risk anything else possibly happening to me.

He swung around and edged to the end of the alleyway again. Carefully, he leant out and looked right and left before motioning for me to follow him. He wasn't honestly expecting me to go out there with him was he?

Evidently he was because without warning he took off sprinting across the street. I stood there for a second before it finally registered. I took off after him at a much slower sprint; again I wasn't exactly in shape. All those hours in front of my computer were finally catching up to me.

It seemed like we were by some subway entrance or something because there were signs hanging everywhere pointing down to stairways leading underground. I also noticed that the area was covered by a glass structure that was missing a lot of panels. As I ran towards the alley on the other side I caught sight of an orange flag blowing in the wind with some odd insignia on it.

I flew into the alley and didn't see Black Mask anywhere. I started to panic, causing my already racing heart to practically beat out of my chest. Did he leave me? Oh no. No, no, no! He couldn't leave me! I was going to die!

"Hurry up!" I heard a harsh whisper from the end of the alleyway. I ceased in my heavy panting long enough to look back up. I started walking to the back of the alley and realized it wasn't a dead end; it actually had a turn around a corner. This place was making me dumber I swear.

I turned the corner and saw Mask standing a few feet away with an irritated look on his face. I didn't know why I felt so relieved or whenI started referring to him as _Mask. _

"C'mon we're almost there." He gestured as he took off at a brisk pace. It seemed like he was getting antsy to get to his destination. I wish I knew where _there_ was. I found myself relying on this man entirely too much.

It seemed like we'd lucked out the rest of the way. We hadn't run into any more of the men with guns. Not directly anyway. I noticed that on the balconies of the buildings above us were some more of these men. Good thing we stuck to staying on the lower ground.

We came to the end of the road. A rail blocked it off and I saw that below it was a concrete street. "We're going down there." Black Mask pointed. "I hope you aren't afraid of heights." Before I could say anything he vaulted over the railing in front of us and landed in a crouched position on the ground below. He looked up at me expectantly once he straightened himself out.

I leant over the rail and saw that it wasn't that huge of a jump, but if I landed wrong I could easily break an ankle. I turned around to look behind me and I caught sight of a horse statue. To the right of it there was a set of double doors. I found myself zoning out a bit before seeing a group of four men come around the corner while laughing loudly.

Feeling my heart rate quicken again I knew it was now or never. In my haste I sloppily jumped over the rail and landed wobbly on my feet. At least I didn't land on my head. I tried to straighten out but realized my legs were locked up and I stumbled backwards. I almost fell over but realized there was a hand on my forearm holding me upright.

My eyes shifted upward to the dark brown ones behind that black mask. I felt my face get hot for some strange reason and muttered a small, "Thanks." I managed to straighten myself out and realized his hand was still holding onto my arm.

His gaze was starting to unnerve me a bit. I couldn't tear my eyes away from his deep brown ones. If anyone would see us staring at each other right now it would be really embarrassing. The little moment was over before long though because a few seconds later the thugs I saw before had stopped right above us. Mask drug me backwards under the overpass while still holding onto my arm.

Underneath the overpass led to nothing but a dead end. A few feet away from us was an electrified fence that was pretty high. There was no way we'd make it over it without being electrocuted to death. Jumping off a bridge was one thing, but climbing up an electric fence was complete suicide.

He finally let go of my arm and walked over to the left side of the fence. He bent down and I noticed he slid a brick on the bottom row aside to reveal a panel. He pressed a few buttons and the electricity shut off. Maybe this was his hideout or something? If so, it was a smart location.

I followed him through the now regular chain link gate. He started walking towards the left hand side of the wall and I realized there was a doorway there. He walked up to the door and turned the knob, opening the door. I went to follow him but he stopped me. "No. You stay out here. I don't think he'd take kindly to me bringing randoms into his place." He turned around to walk through he doorway again when he said added, "Just don't make any noise and stay here."

With that the steel door closed shut again and I was left standing under the overpass. I noticed that this area was enclosed by not only the now unelectrified fence, but also by another plain chain link fence. On the other side of that fence it looked like a street.

I sighed and made my way over to a pile of crates on the opposite wall. I sat down on a lower one and put my head in my hands. I hadn't realized until just now how much this night was affecting me. I felt exhausted both physically and mentally. My psyche had taken a serious blow in the past few hours.

When, no _if_, I ever got out of this place I was going to go very far away. If I never saw Gotham for the fest of my life it would be too soon.

I must've been wallowing in my self-pity too much to realize the atmosphere under the overpass had changed. The almost serene atmosphere had changed in a split second when I felt two muscular arms swipe me off of the crate I had been sitting on.

My mouth opened in an attempt to scream, but before any sound came out, a gag was tied around it, leaving me speechless. It was only then that I realized two of those guys I had seen come around the corner above had somehow found me down here. "Oh the boss is gonna like this one." The bald man holding me said in a horribly rough voice.

This caused the other one to chuckle and say in a squeaky voice, "If she even makes it to the boss." As I was hefted over the brute of a man's shoulder, they both let out horrifying chuckles.

Without thinking I began mercilessly pounding and kicking at anything I could reach. "Ooh. This one's feisty!" Said the sickeningly rough man.

"Yeah what's a sweet thing like you doing in a place like this?" Squeakers asked while walking over to the other fence and kicking open a gate to allow the giant carrying me to swing me through.

Obviously this guy wasn't the brightest or maybe he wasn't expecting an answer since my mouth was gagged. I was freaking out to the point that tears began streaming down my face. I was shaking I was so scared and my mind was beginning to shut down. I was panicking so bad that I couldn't even think.

Somehow we ended up back in front of the double doors by the horse statue. The two other men that had been in their little entourage had met up with a few other men. There were now five of them huddled around the doorway, some sitting on the stoop, and some keeping guard with guns.

"Where the hell did you find that?" One of the men from the stoop asked in an incredulous voice. I could feel seven pairs of eyes on me at this point, just waiting to jump and attack me.

"None of your damn business. This one's going to the boss so watch out." The man carrying me barked out and pushed his way through the group of huddled men. He walked me through the doors and into a dark hallway. I shuddered as the heavy doors slammed behind us, echoing in the darkness.

I prayed that Mask would be able to find me before this man took me to his 'boss.' I didn't know who his boss was, but judging by the two black birds pictured on his jacket, I had a pretty good guess.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything except my OC.

I had stopped my onslaught of punches the second the door closed. Through the darkness I could faintly see the outline of the door, but not much else. The man carrying me started walking again. I couldn't do anything to stop the small sobs that were escaping my mouth.

Seriously, how stupid could I have been? I shouldn't have followed a masked maniac to begin with. If I had just stayed where I was outside that damn detainment building, I wouldn't be slung over the shoulder of some random thug who was carrying me to my certain death.

Up ahead of us I could hear some talking and crude laughter. I didn't want to find out how many men were laughing. The more there were, the less my chance of living was. I wanted out of here. I wanted to go home. I didn't deserve this. Did I?

Maybe I did. Maybe this was karma coming back to bite me in the ass after what I did to that poor cashier. If it was, I at least wanted my death to be quick. Not the way I was sure to die if I stayed in this place.

I looked around and realized wherever we were going had light that was causing the hallway to light up in an eerie glow. With the new light, I was finally able to see what was in the hallway. Lining both sides were glass cases filled with what looked like mannequins. Only after passing one that was particularly lit up, did I realize those mannequins rotting corpses.

_Where was I! _I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep what was left of my dinner in my stomach. That's how I was going to end up. I would be posed in a glass case and left to rot.

Out of nowhere my captor dropped me on the ground in front of him. I quickly sat up and took in my surroundings.

We were in a large circular room with a giant blue rock formation in the middle of it. It looked like the place may have been a fancy restaurant at some point, but that time had come and passed. The walls were painted a pinkish color with gold accents. There were tables set for two lining the walls all around the room.

I was distracted from my sight seeing however by the sight in front of me. Huddled around two of those tables pushed together were seven or eight men playing cards.

"Who's that?" One of the men asked. They were obviously just thugs used to do evil bidding. They were dressed the same way as my captor, wearing that insignia showing two penguins.

"Don't worry about it. Where's the boss?" Asked the man who had been carrying me.

None of the men said anything for a minute. Finally a fat man with a dirty hair spoke up. "I think he's feeding his little pet. That's where he was heading the last time I saw him." He shrugged and looked back down at his cards.

The man didn't pick me up this time but he did put the death grip on my arm as he began dragging me to the northern end of the room. He pulled me up a ramp that led to an area that acted as a circular balcony. There were more tables set up here as well, only more spread out.

We walked around about half the circle until I noticed another hallway. At the end of the hallway was a single door. Whatever was on the other side of that door wasn't going to be anything good.

I swallowed hard as the man next to me pushed the door open. To my relief I saw that it was nothing more than another dank corridor. This time the past luxurious feel was completely gone. The stonewalls looked as if they had mold growing on them. I was immediately reminded of some underground dungeon.

There were displays set up throughout the hall featuring skeletons posed and dressed in some goofy way. I tried to imagine that they were just made out of plastic, but the rotting yellow color of the bones made that hard to do.

While I was lost in my thought it seemed as though we had walked the length of this room and had made it to another door. This time I didn't have a chance to brace myself before Mr. Muscles wrested the door open.

I was immediately met with the smell of saltwater and cigar smoke. "No! No! Stop! You're cra-" I heard someone shout before a splash of water was heard. Standing in front of me against a railing was a man who was even shorter than I was.

He was wearing a heavy brown coat with fur around the collar. I saw silvery smoke rising in front of him. Well that explains the cigar smoke I smelled. He seemed to be balding as well because although there was hair on the back of his head, there wasn't on the top.

"That should teach those piggies not to double cross me." The small man said in a coarse British accent. He had a warm, but nasty tone of voice. He seemed like a man you wouldn't want to mess with.

"Boss. I found someone that might interest you." The so-called 'boss' turned around and I finally got a good look at him. It seemed the bulk of the coat wasn't so much bulk, as it was the man's weight. He was a largish man. He had small brown eyes, or should I say eye? His left one was covered by a diamond incrusted monocle that had a large crack. A scar was visible underneath it. I wonder how that happened?

He looked first at his thug and then turned to me. "Well, well. That's something you don't see every day in here." He paused to take a puff of his cigar before continuing. "But tell me. Why the _hell_ would you think that might interest me?" This second part was spit out in a harsh condescending tone.

The man who brought me here obviously didn't know what to say to that. He must've thought his boss would be a lot more impressed than he was. I didn't know if his lack of interest in me was a good or bad thing?

"Well Penguin sir, I-I thought you might, I don't know, need someone-" He was promptly cut off by the short man's laughter.

"That shows how little you know. Now get out of here before I kill you too." The man spit out. My captor quickly let go of me and made his way towards the door, but before he went the Penguin had one more thing to say, "And just for future reference, I like the tall blondes, not girls who look like they're thirteen." That was a little harsh. I looked a few years older than thirteen at least.

The door slammed shut, signaling that I was left alone with yet another one of Gotham's crazies. He looked at me for a second before puffing on his cigar some more. His silence was starting to freak me out.

"So what to do with you now?" He casually leaned on an umbrella that I hadn't seen in his hand before. Why was he carrying an umbrella around inside?

I heard shuffling from beneath the ledge before a massive hand came into view as it gripped the railing. Slowly the hand turned into a huge arm that was pulling a giant onto the platform we were on. The man had to be six and half feet tall, if not taller. Because he didn't have a shirt on, I had a good view of his bulging muscles. Tattoos littered his chest, but the two that stuck out were two dark black penguins. What really was striking about this man however was the fact that he only had one arm.

"It's not very nice to stare you know? Americans and their manners." Penguin grumbled under his breath. "Mr. Abramovici, would you be kind enough to take care of our guest? I don't think I have a use for this one."

The Penguin turned around and walked past me towards the door. Before I knew it, the giant grabbed me by my foot and had me dangling over the railing upside down. I let out a shriek by how fast everything happened. For a big guy, he sure was fast.

Beneath me was a huge pool of water that spread throughout the room. Its murky water looked uninviting even from this height. How I had missed this little detail before was beyond me, but now that I was up here I had a semi-good view of the room.

Half of the water was covered in iced over patches while the other was filled with the water. I looked around and noticed to my left was a chunk of ice that went up the wall a little bit. Sticking from the side was what looked like an…arm? _There was a person in there?_ This was not good. Not good at all.

I looked back down to the water below me and saw a huge dark shape moving in a circle. What was that! What was this place? Before I thought anything over, I screamed out, "WAIT! I can help you!"

I honestly don't know what possessed me to say that, but it at least got Penguin to stop. His hand was still on the doorknob as he turned and chuckled at me. "What do you honestly think you could help me with?" I had to admit _I_ didn't even know the answer to that.

The seconds ticked by as I tried to think of something to say. "That's what I thought." He opened the door and started to walk through it. I felt the grip on my ankle begin to loosen.

C'mon Vi, think fast. "I'm good with technology! And I know how to shoot a gun!" I hadn't exactly lied on the first part, but I definitely had on the last. I had used a gun once when my dad tried to show me how to shoot. He had been into hunting and all of that. I was never exactly interested in guns, so that never really took off.

Penguin stopped once again and asked, "Good with technology are you?" He motioned a bandaged hand and I was dropped onto solid ground once again. This time I fully stood up, only to be dwarfed by the gargantuan next to me.

"Yeah. You know, computers and stuff." I clarified. He seemed to be thinking of something for while. Hopefully that little declaration would end up saving my life.

"So, say I had….a machine of sorts that needed tweaking. Could you manage to do that?" He asked without malice in his voice now.

"Most likely yeah." I quickly said while nodding my head. I was almost out of this.

"Well then, maybe I won't kill you just yet." He nodded to the giant next to me and I felt the man's arm grip my shoulder. He then forced me to follow Penguin back through the door. We walked back through the moldy corridor again and into the circular room. Instead of going back down to the lower ground where the men were playing cards, we walked around the circle once again.

I didn't even know where I was at this point. All I knew was that by some miracle I had talked my way out of dying at least for the time being.

The Penguin stopped in front of one of the pink walls and reached his umbrella up to tap the ceiling. All of the sudden the wall moved to the side and revealed a medium sized dark room with computer screens filling one wall. This looked like a place I could get used to.

All three of us entered the room. Penguin flipped a switch and the room lit up. The wall of screens seemed to be completely made of surveillance cameras. As I scanned the screens, I noticed that the majority of them showed places with more display cases. It looked like a museum of some sort?

"Hey girlie, pay attention." I snapped out of my thoughts as Penguin smacked his umbrella off the wall next to my head.

Once he saw he had my attention he walked over to the corner of the room and motioned me to come over. I wasn't going anywhere near this guy if I could help it. My plan for staying where I was worked for a whole ten seconds before a giant hand pushed me forward. I unsteadily straightened out as I moved towards Penguin.

I stopped with enough room between us so if he decided to try to do anything to me I at least had a chance to get out of the way. He growled and said, "Don't test me. I could easily change my mind here." I didn't say anything so he continued.

Before us was a large machine with three satellite dishes sitting on the top of it. I had never seen anything that looked like this before. I noticed that it had three sides with a screen on each one. The screens however looked glitchy and were filled with static.

"I need you to fix this piece of junk for me. It doesn't' seem to be working properly and none of the other morons I have working for me know how to fix it." Penguin explained while I was still examining the machine.

I had begun walking around it in fascination before I could stop myself. I noticed that one of the screens was up and working fine, showing a code of numbers and letters. The other two however were completely messed up.

"What is this thing?" I asked in amazement. It looked like some type of government technology you would see in a spy movie.

"Don't worry about what it is. The real question is can you fix it?" He asked in a rushed voice. He must need it soon. That probably wasn't a good thing for me.

"Well, I'd have to get in and see what's wrong with it, but I should be able to." I honestly had no clue if I would be able to fix this thing or not. I'd fixed and wired a fair share of computers in my life. I just had to think of this thing as a big computer and I should be okay. Right?

He impatiently said, "Well you better hope you can. Because if you can't, you aren't going to be long for this earth." He turned and started walking back towards the door with the giant following him.

"Wait! When do I need to have this fixed by?" I called out after him. This could take a few days, depending on how fast I could figure out what was wrong with it.

"About an hour." My heart sunk into my stomach as he said this. "And I'd start soon because if you don't fix it, you die." He fixed me with a menacing look.

I swallowed hard and asked, "So if I do fix it, you'll let me live?" I wasn't going to fix this thing just to be killed ten seconds later.

He thought it over for a minute before saying, "It can't hurt your odds." With that he turned around and closed the wall again.

It wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for, but it would have to do. I turned around and got started on my new project. After all, the clock was ticking.


	6. Chapter 6

After pulling off the panel of one of the messed up screens, I was met with a horrible sight. Taking over the inside of the machine were a rainbow of different colored wires. Okay, so it wasn't quite like the inside of a computer after all.

I fell back on my butt and just stared at the whole mess in front of me for literally five minutes, not moving. I was screwed. I didn't even know what this machine was. Almost subconsciously, I ran my hand over the cool metal of the machine. I did this a couple of times before I registered that my hand was running over something made of paper.

Before thinking over the fact that I was about to stick my head in a running machine, I leapt forward. Once I leant inside a little bit I could see a worn sticker stuck to the side of one of the walls.

On it, it read: _Radiofrequency Disrupter._

A disrupter? Now, I didn't know what specific type of felon the Penguin was, but I was getting the feeling that he was into illegal trading of some sort. This thing was most definitely not manufactured widely. Heck, some of the parts looked as if they were held together with twisty ties you would find in a kitchen. Not exactly what I would call high tech.

After skimming over the rest of the sticker and not finding anything of any use, I pulled my head back out of the disrupter. My brain was now in overdrive, trying to think of ways to possibly fix this thing in the next fifty minutes or so. Maybe I should just accept the fact that I was probably going to die either way. But what if he wouldn't kill me if I fixed it?

I started biting my nails, a nervous habit of mine, as I thought everything over. I scanned my eyes over to the other panel that displayed a snowy screen.

This time I moved over to that one and felt around the bottom of the screen, looking for the latch to lift it up. When my fingers skimmed over the dusty latch, I lifted it up and looked inside of this one too. I was met with the same sight as the first one. Nothing but a bunch of tangled cords again.

That left me with the last panel. If that one was working, maybe I could look and see how that one was wired differently from the other two. When I lifted this last hatch up I saw the same amount of colored cords in the same state of disarray. Yep, I was screwed.

In that moment I felt like screaming until my throat started bleeding. I was tired, I was frustrated, and more importantly I was being held captive by a bunch of psychos who were forcing me to fix some damn machine I've never seen.

My breathing started becoming irregular as I panicked more and more. No, I was stronger than this. I just had to breath in and out, just like I was told to do. While sitting on the floor, I put my head in between my knees and counted to ten slowly. Once I get to ten, I _will_ get a grip of myself and I _will _find a way to fix this thing. I wasn't this weak or this stupid. I just needed to focus and get this done as quickly as possible.

After ten seconds, which were more like twenty, I pulled myself together and got to work for real this time. If I knew one thing about computers, it was that they were all basically wired the same way. Everything in a computer was there for a reason, which meant that everything in this machine was there for a reason too. I just had to figure out what all of it was.

At this point I figured I had about forty-five minutes left. I stuck my head inside the machine again, but this time into the panel that was up and running correctly.

Along the sides of the machine were wires that were connecting into sockets in a specific pattern. Most were in a specific color pattern: green, red, yellow, blue, black, and repeat. Okay, so that wasn't hard to figure out.

In the center of the hatch was a metal cube with bundles of these wires sticking out of it. These wires weren't separate though; they were twisted together to form one giant plug at the end that fit into specific places on the cube.

So there _was_ a specific order to the wires in this thing. It wasn't that they were all tangled, more like they were just crisscrossing over each other, making it look like it was total chaos. Okay, I could work with this.

If this was how this one was set up, the other two should be too. With that thought I moved to the next panel and looked inside. The wires were all connected into the sides of the machine, but they seemed to be in a different pattern. There were colors repeating one after the other. Whoever did this one was in a hurry and got sloppy. That, or they just had no idea what they were doing.

I began plucking wires out of the walls with quick accuracy, careful not to rip any on accident. Once that was done I replaced them into their proper places. I turned to the cube and saw that everything there seemed to be in its proper place. Crossing my fingers, I closed the lid and waited for the screen to light up. For a second I thought that I had completely killed it, until I saw it light up with those letters and numbers.

"Woo!" I threw my hands up, proud of my accomplishment. Yeah, I was that dorky. Although that one had gone smoothly, it had taken some time to just put the wires into the right places. With only one more to go, I turned to the next one and got to work.

Timed seemed to fly and before I knew it, Penguin walked back through the door, this time without his one armed bodyguard. "Well girl, let's see how bad this thing turned out." He said with a mocking tone. He didn't make it three feet before stopping dead in his tracks. His eyes scanned over the fully functional machine before they landed on me. He seemed to regain his composure when he saw me sitting cross-legged on top of the machine with my arms folded over my chest.

I had finished with barely any time to spare, but it was done. I had actually managed to get all three screens up and running again by some miracle. While still sitting where I was, I watched as Penguin began circling the machine and examining each screen with an odd look on his face. "So, you actually managed to fix this piece of junk, did you?"

Nodding my head I replied with a curt, "Yeah well, it wasn't hard. Whoever wired it must've been color blind or something." He just nodded as he continued to look at the screens. He must seriously be in his own little world if he didn't have a retort for my smart comment.

He didn't say anything else as he began walking towards the door again. I was about to ask where he was going when he said, "Follow me, girl." I immediately hopped down from the machine and walked out behind him.

Down on the lower level of the balcony, the thugs were still playing cards. Geez, I would've thought these guys would have no time to do anything other than patrol and cause mayhem. What surprised me more though, was the fact that Penguin seemed like he could care less that they were just sitting around.

We walked back down the ramp to the lower part and I noticed we were going back towards the back door. "Listen up you imbeciles. The third machine is up and running. I want it underground in the place we discussed. If I so much as catch wind of any of you breaking it or letting the _bat_ get to it don't bother coming back here. If you do, I'll kill you myself." He began walking forward again with me following him when he added, "You're on the clock boys."

All at once I heard several chairs scrape against the floor in their haste to go get the machine. How the heck did they expect to get this thing out of the building? It wasn't exactly something you could just sling over your back. And more importantly, why were they taking it underground? I wouldn't think a jammer would work underground, but I wasn't about to voice my thoughts. No need to push my luck now that I'd actually done something right.

We walked through the hall I had been brought in through and I saw that there were now lights glowing on the walls. When we got to the end of the hall Penguin took out a key and opened a large door I hadn't noticed before. It seemed like it was the Penguin's office.

It was very dark, but had a creepy glow coming from a single lamp on the desk. I swallowed as he said, "Ladies first." Something about the way he said this scared me, but I stepped through anyway. I wasn't exactly worried about him raping me or anything like that since he already made it clear I wasn't his type, but I didn't know if he kept guns or anything around. Plus, that umbrella creeped me out.

He sat back into his chair and motioned for me to do the same in a chair in front of the desk. I felt like I was talking to a mob boss or something. _Oh wait._ I tentatively lowered myself into the leather chair. For being a criminal, he seemed to have quite a few nice things.

"Who are you?" He got right to the point, his British accent wasn't harsh, just inquisitive. Should I tell this guy anything about me? If I did he was probably going to kill me. Oh what the hell do I even care at this point? I fixed his machine, he should just be happy.

"My name's Violet." Again, I wasn't going to say my last name. The last thing I needed was for him to go after my family.

"So _Violet_," he said my name with a hint of venom in his voice, like it wasn't worthy enough for him to be saying, "you managed to fix my machine." Where was he going with this? "I suppose I should thank you for that." It sounded like this was the closest thing to a thanks I would be getting considering his pompous tone.

I just shook my head as if saying that it was nothing. He let out a breathy chuckle as he leaned backwards in his chair again. I had no idea what to expect when I was escorted into his office, but small talk wasn't one of them. Maybe getting shot in the head or stabbed or lit on fire, but not this.

"So, what to do with you now?" He suddenly became serious while I was lost in my thoughts. I really needed to learn to be more attentive while in the presence of wanted felons. He had his hands propped up on the desk as he glanced at me over them. I felt like a bug under a magnifying glass.

"I suppose you've outlived your usefulness, so it would be wise to just kill you." As soon as he said this it felt like I hadn't had anything to drink in several days. My mouth felt as dry as a desert. Every time I swallowed, a burning fire would erupt in my throat. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

After what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, he smirked at me. "I think I know how you can finally prove your usefulness." He stood up and walked around his desk slowly and deliberately, using his umbrella as a cane of sorts. I had a moment of panic shoot through me at the thought of what his plan for me could really be.

I was sent over the edge as he pulled out a handgun. So, my death would be because of a bullet wound. I suppose it could be worse. It was definitely better than being dropped into a pool with whatever that giant shadow was.

Without even realizing it, I must've closed my eyes because I heard Penguin say, "Oh for the love of…open your eyes girl!" Very slowly, as if any sudden movement would cause the gun to go off, I opened my eyes. It was then that I saw the gun wasn't aimed at me at all. It was held out in a bandaged hand. What, he wanted me to take it?

As if confirming my thoughts he pushed his arm out further and nodded to the gun. When I got over the initial shock that he wasn't planning on killing me, I grabbed the gun and immediately checked that the safety was on. If there was one thing I learned the day my dad taught me to shoot, it was to always make sure the safety was on when a gun wasn't being used. That's pretty much the only thing I learned that day before booking it back to the car.

"No need to turn the safety on, the blasted thing isn't loaded. What kind of fool do you take me for?" Oh, right. I probably should've realized I wouldn't be given a loaded gun while he was unarmed.

"Here's the deal, if you help the morons I call henchmen set up that machine properly, I'll let you live. No questions asked." He turned back towards his desk as I stared down at the surprisingly light gun in my hand. I thought that since I'd fixed the machine for him that meant I'd get to live, apparently that isn't how it works in Arkham City. Surprise, surprise.

He sat back in his chair and started writing something down. I thought for a second he'd forgotten I was still there until he looked up and said, "Well, what're you waiting for? They should be ready to leave if they haven't broke it again." He said the last part in a cynical tone that just screamed of annoyance. So that's why I had to fix it in the first place. One of his men messed it up. I bet they found out what was lurking in those murky waters.

I started towards the door again, not really knowing how I was thrown into this situation in the first place, but then I turned and asked, "What am I supposed to do with an unloaded gun?" Even if I somehow got bullets, I was clueless as to how to load a gun.

This time he didn't even bother to look up as he let out a snort. "Why don't you ask one of those fine gentlemen who will be escorting you out of the building. Or maybe it wouldn't be such a wise idea to let them know you're carrying an unloaded gun." He let out a disturbing giggle that was cut off by the crackle of a walkie-talkie.

"_Sir, the bat has just entered the building. I've alerted the men to flip the switch on the disrupters." _What the heck was going on in this city? You know what, I don't even care. I didn't even wait to hear Penguin's giddy response before walking out of the office.

As the heavy door slammed shut behind me, I knew this night just got a whole lot longer.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Once again, I do not own anything from Batman.

_ The radio was turned up to a level that made my eardrums throb. It's not like it was anything out of the ordinary though, especially when there are two teenagers in a car. _

_ A loud whack was barely heard over the deafening tones of the music as my fist punched the steering wheel. The girl next to me in the passenger seat jumped my display of anger._

_ "Geeze Vi, calm down. It's not like we've never been yelled at by mom and dad before." A girl with dark brown hair sitting in the passenger seat said to me. We could be considered twins if it weren't for our different colored eyes. _

_ My hand shot out and jammed the volume button, successfully shutting off the shrill music. The sudden silence in the car left a ringing in my ears. "You really don't understand the seriousness of this situation. You're still too young and naïve." That may have been an overstatement since she really was only two years younger than me. That and the fact that the whole reason I was so worked up to begin with was a rather mature matter that my sister had somehow gotten herself into._

_ "Okay that makes complete sense?" Olivia shot back at me with intensity. I felt like I wanted to just slam my head into the steering wheel, but I knew that wouldn't accomplish anything._

_ Instead, I gave my "baby sister", and I use that term loosely, the death glare. "You know, you really should edit your little thought process. Mom and dad weren't yelling at _us,_ they were yelling at_you_." Honestly the whole situation was surreal._

_ Out of the corner of my eye I saw her throw her hands in the air. "Exactly! It was _my _problem, so why the hell are you all worked up over it?" Olivia was quite the drama queen even under normal circumstances. Now though, she was just being a brat._

_ "Watch your language. We don't want you turning into a potty mouth on top of everything else." I kept my eyes on the road as I drove the familiar route back to our home._ _I flipped the lights on when I realized just how dark it had gotten outside. _

_I saw her sit back in her seat again and cross her arms. She honestly looked like a pouting child. "Look, I just don't like the fact that mom and dad are completely putting the blame on you. It isn't fair." I explained in an even tone, trying to contain my anger. _

_In all honesty my anger wasn't even aimed at mom and dad, let alone Liv. "Well why wouldn't they put the blame on me? It was _my _fault we were caught after all. Jeremy didn't have anything to do with it." She explained as if it was as simple as 2+2._

_After that I couldn't help but to snap my head towards her. "You can't be serious!" She met my gaze with fire burning in her eyes. My sister wasn't a stupid girl, but lately she was sure acting like it. _

_ She was always a lot more outgoing than I was, doing sports and cheerleading, but she had always kept her grades up. That was up until this year. Once she hit high school, it was like something changed inside of her. The girl next to me may look like my sister, but I felt like I didn't even know her._

_ "You're defending that sicko now? Liv, do you even realize how bad this could play out for you! Do you care about the rest of your life? Think about how this will look on your record! I mean, you got expelled from school over this. It isn't something that is just going to go away!" I was screaming at this point. I was just so infuriated and frustrated with her that I couldn't think straight._

_ "You know what! I don't care Violet! I'm not the perfect daughter like you and I never will be! I don't want to be! I don't want to be anything like you!" She screamed back in my face._

_ "And what is that supposed to mean!" I was starting to sound like the sixteen year old I was at this point, but she was starting to hurt my feelings. Why wouldn't she want to be like me?_

_ "You're dead boring. All you do is mope around the house, you know, when you actually come out of your bedroom. You don't even have any friends other than the blonde bimbos, and that's just because they can't find anyone else who will put up with their crap!" She was being an unreasonable brat right now. _

_ I turned to face her again as I screamed, "Don't act like you know anything-" but she cut me off mid sentence. She opened her mouth to, what I thought, was scream at me again, but I didn't see the fear in her eyes until it was too late. _

_ When I did see it, my own vision was cut short by the bright headlights of the truck coming straight at us._

I felt as if I was walking to the death chamber. Well, I suppose that would be an appropriate name for the place considering what went on here. I looked straight ahead of me with the empty gun still clutched in my right hand.

It was basically pointless to even be carrying this gun on me, but what else could I do? At least if I walked into the room holding a gun, they might think twice about trying to do anything to me. Knowing me though, I probably wasn't even holding the thing right. My breathing was starting to work up again. I took deep breaths as I slowed my pace just a tad bit. The closer I got to the circular room, the louder the voices got.

Once again I was surrounded by light when I stepped out of the hallway and into the room. There were six men gathered around the disrupter. The first thing my eyes fell on were the high-powered guns slung over their shoulders. Then I noticed they had put it on a wooden platform with wheels on the bottom of it.

"Hey! Lookie who it is. Ain't that the chick you brought in?" A stocky man in a dirty wife beater called over to the man standing in front of the entourage. I looked over at the man he was talking to and realized it was the rough guy who dragged me in here.

The other men stopped their chatting and turned to look at me now. "What're you still doing here?" The man in the dirty tank top said to me in a mocking tone. The looks on the other men's faces ranged from confusion to hunger? I didn't like that look at all.

"Penguin said I had to help you guys set up the disrupter." I quickly explained. The less I had to talk to these men, the better. After saying this though, all of their looks turned to confusion before they started laughing.

"Oh man, this has to be some kind of joke." A shorter man with a ski mask over his face said with a sort of twitch to his voice. He sounded like he was on drugs.

Another man covered in red padding said, "Yeah what's to stop us from just killing you right now?" I saw some men nod their heads. To answer the man's question I held up my right hand with the gun in it. Some of them raised their eyebrows.

Mr. red padding decided to put his two cents in again by asking, "How do we know if you can even work that thing?" Hmm, maybe they weren't as stupid as they looked.

Almost automatically I spit out, "Wanna find out?" This elicited a sort of rough laugh from the bald man who had carried me in here.

"Good enough then. If the boss says she has to set this thing up, then she sets it up. Besides if we don't get a move on it, we won't have to find out if she can use ta gun. We all know the boss knows how to use one." This seemed to get the message across to the men. He dug around in his pocket for a second then tossed a folded cloth towards me. I opened it up and saw that it was an armband with a penguin on it. "Put that on. Wouldn't want you getting shot before you had a chance to set up the disrupter."

They started moving towards the hallway I had just come from again while wheeling the squeaky crate bottom along beside them. I followed in the back, while adjusting the armband around my forearm so the penguin was facing out.

We made it to the back door, but stopped as it opened. All of the men seemed to tense up until they saw it was one of their own coming through the door. I couldn't see what was going on, but when I heard their dark chuckles I knew it was nothing good. The man standing in front of me, the druggie, let out a psychotic chuckle and said, "If it isn't Frosty the Snowman in the flesh." They all laughed at his inside joke.

Everyone moved over to the side to allow people to pass through. I followed suit and finally saw who was being brought in. Being hauled between a few thugs was a tall man who looked like he was going to pass out at any moment.

This wouldn't usually be so shocking to me, since I was brought in in a similar fashion not even two hours ago, but this man was blue. He looked blue. Plus he had some sort of tube with bright blue liquid glowing it. He moaned a little as his eyes opened up revealing bright bluish gray irises. He seemed in pain. Call me insane but when he passed me I felt like the temperature dropped a few degrees.

As soon as the man had passed we continued out the door as if nothing had even happened. If this seemed normal to them, I'd like to see what these men thought was out of the ordinary.

The cold air of Arkham City hit me like a brick wall. For a dilapidated looking building, it at least had a working heater. I curiously turned around to look at the odd building and saw a sign hanging above the door that I had missed the first time I came this way since I was kind of distracted before. In bright blue letters above the door were the words _Iceberg Lounge._

Something clicked in my head. That big blue rock in the middle of the circular room wasn't a rock at all. It was an iceberg. That explained the whole aquatic them of the place anyway.

I looked to my right and saw the horse statue. After that my head snapped to the left and I saw the railing that Black Mask and I had vaulted over however long ago. I wonder what he thought when he came out and saw I was missing. He probably was glad to get rid of the extra baggage. What if he was still down there thought? He would surely be able to fix this situation. No, what was I thinking? He wouldn't want anything to do with helping me.

I caught up to the group and we continued to walk around while the men talked about something or other in front of me. It seemed like they'd forgotten I was even there. That was probably a good thing.

"So why _are_ you still alive?" I heard the rough voice that I knew belonged to my captor say from beside me. I turned to see him staring at me with a curious look on his face. How the heck did this big guy sneak up on me?

I turned to look ahead as we were navigating through the run down streets before I answered him. "I told you. Penguin wants me to help you set up this disruptor." It wasn't like that was an unbelievable story or anything.

He looked at me for a minute and said, "That's weird." Like I didn't know that already. He must've seen my face because he elaborated, "What I mean is that usually the boss uses people then gets rid of them once their usefulness runs out."

A bitter laugh escaped my mouth before saying, "Maybe that's what he's doing with me. Maybe he hopes I won't be coming back after this." That would be the one logical thing about this whole situation.

The snow had let up just a bit while I had been inside the Iceberg Lounge. It was still flurrying a little, but nothing drastically. It would've been pretty if the hideous background hadn't been behind it. There were thugs everywhere throughout the streets. It turned out that the armband with the penguin on it gave me a little bit of security, knowing that these men wouldn't be shooting me.

Just when I thought our little conversation was over the rough guy decided to speak up again, "I don't think that's what's going on." I was getting fed up with all of the beating around the bush.

Finally I just stopped and said, "Then would you kindly tell me just what _is _going on . . .whoever you are? " I didn't even know this guy's name. Not that I really wanted to.

"Just call me Rick." He stopped when I had stopped too. He kept an eye on the men still walking with the disrupter in front of us before saying to me, "It doesn't seem like he's trying to get rid of you. I've worked with the Penguin for a while now and I know when he does and doesn't want to get rid of people. To me it seems like he's testing you."

Well that totally came out of left field. I looked at him curiously and all I could think of saying was, "Huh?"

He said, "C'mon let's catch up." We walked a bit faster until we were just a few feet behind the group, but still out of earshot. "Seems to me like you've caught the boss's attention when you fixed that piece of junk." He paused for a moment and said, "It takes a lot to catch the boss's attention."

I scoffed at this. I hadn't caught anyone's attention. Penguin was just sending me out into this city to "set up" an already up and running machine. Yeah right. "Well you seem to be on good terms with him. You're in charge here aren't you?" He had been leading the group until he dropped back to talk to me.

"Yeah, well I wouldn't say we're on good terms, but I'm in no danger of him offing me with that damn umbrella anytime soon." Ha! I knew there was something off about that umbrella! He just shrugged and motioned towards the gun I was still clutching in my right hand. "Want me to load that for you?"

I was completely dumbfounded at this point. He had know this whole time the gun was unloaded and hadn't said anything? And here I thought this guy had the IQ of an ant. Then again, these men had street smarts, something I completely lacked.

Before I realized what was coming out of my mouth I muttered, "I don't even know how to use it." Rick didn't exactly seem surprised at my confession though. It was pretty obvious I shouldn't even still be alive in this place. I'd never been a lucky person, but tonight it seemed that fate was on my side.

"It's not hard to use." He motioned to the safety on the side of the gun and said, "As long as the safety is off all you have to do is point and shoot. He gave you a pretty simple gun." I always hated when people had to explain things to me. Especially something that I was completely clueless about.

He loaded the gun and made sure the safety was on before handing it back to me. I uttered a small, "Thanks."

"I hope you have good aim." Was all he said before walking back to the front of the group. Not even a minute later we stopped at a building made out of brown bricks.

As soon as I stepped through the front door I was hit with the smell of death. The inside of the place was set up as a hotel. Something told me it probably wasn't in a much better condition before Arkham City came along. Everything was tinged a yellowing brown color. I noticed a puddle in the corner of the room that had something that looked a lot like blood dripping down to it. My eyes followed the path of the drop up to where it came from and I saw a dark red stain on the ceiling.

"Hey little girl. We kind of have somewhere to be." The man in the red pads called out to me from by the elevator. I hadn't moved an inch from when I entered the building. I quickly strode over to the elevator and got inside.

The elevator was entirely too small to fit seven people and a large machine in it, but they insisted on piling in. If I thought the outside of the elevator smelled bad, it was nothing compared to the inside of it. But that might just be the six men who were packed around me. The prisoners of Arkham City didn't seem to care much for hygiene.

I was pressed against the right wall between a burly man and the druggie. I could feel the large man behind me staring down at me as the elevator descended.

"What's gonna happen to this one after we're done down here?" His deep voice asked from behind me. It sent a shiver down my spine just from the tone he used.

When no one answered him he decided to get a little touchy feely. He roughly grabbed my butt just as the elevator doors opened. Quicker than I thought I could possibly move, I booked it out of that elevator. I heard some chuckling from behind me, but kept moving out into a considerably well-lit room with a bunch of broken down trains in it.

I waited a few seconds until the rest of the thugs came into view. My insides started squirming when I saw the man who had been standing behind me. I'd gotten too comfortable in this place. There were all types of felons in this place. That included men who didn't mind disrespecting women in the foulest ways possible.

Rick walked over to the platform by the trains and called the rest of the men over. "Set the machine over here." He turned to me next and said, "You better make sure this thing is up and running right." The way he said it was meant to leave no arguments.

After the men had set up the machine I waited until they all started moseying away before I went over to it. I didn't want to be anywhere near these sick freaks after the incident in the elevator. I couldn't trust any of them.

I checked the whole machine, making sure the switches were all situated in the right places before switching the machine on. Once that was all done, I wondered why we were still down here. The machine was set up so why weren't we leaving?

Instead of asking, I sat on the steps a few feet away from the disrupter. I made sure to keep my eye on the six men patrolling the room, especially the burly man who kept looking back at me. I looked down at the gun I was still clutching and thought about the chances I had at shooting someone if I needed to. They weren't real great. This went on for about fifteen or twenty minutes before I heard a walkie-talkie go off inside the train that Rick just stepped into.

"_The bat's on his way down. Protect that disrupter or you die!" _After the Penguin's voice stopped, the air became thick with tension. It seemed like I wasn't the only who heard that message.

There were scattered proclamations of not being afraid of the bat throughout out the room. I'd never seen Batman, but I'd heard about him constantly since entering this city. At the thought of a hero among all of these villains, a new hope lit up inside me for the first time since I can remember.

Rick had emerged from a train and stayed pretty close to the machine after that message. He was obviously afraid of the Penguin. But was he afraid of that bat?

From the far side of the room gunshots rang out followed by screaming. "I ain't afraid of some freak in a costume!" The druggie yelled. I shot to my feet in an instant as Rick readied his weapon.

A/N: Thank you for all of my fans who have reviewed and supported this story! I really appreciate the feedback I'm getting!


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Batman franchise, but I do own Violet.

We were sitting ducks. Well, technically sitting penguins, but that's not the point. One of us was already taken out and who knows who would be next.

Rick turned towards me and said, "Stay by this machine, if you catch sight of anything moving towards you that isn't part of our group, you yell as loud as you can." With that he turned around and started stalking away from the machine. I was left standing there with a weapon I didn't even know how to use, just waiting to see who this Dark Knight guy really was.

"Ahhhhh!" I heard someone screaming from up above me somewhere. I slowly backed up until I was standing on the edge of the platform. I looked up and for a second I thought I saw a shadow pass over me, but it might've just been the faulty lighting in the subway station. Hanging from one of the gargoyles on the wall was Mr. Red Padding. "Someone cut me down! Hurry!"

The rest of the men began making their way over to the upside down man. I noticed Rick right away, but I also saw there were only two other men with him. That meant that one other thug was missing. By the time the rest of them got over to the dangling thug and tried to figure out how to take him down, he was rendered unconscious.

Judging by the goons' body language, they were all on high alert. It was kind of funny that at the moment, the more they got nervous, the less I did. I just hoped Batman wouldn't think I was with these goons.

Now was my time to act. There were only three thugs left. That wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have guns. However, the fact that Batman was down here too sort of evened out the playing field. If I could just get out away from this machine while the rest of the thugs were distracted, then there would be no way Batman would think I'm with them.

I made sure to keep my eyes on the now scattering goons before I made a move. Once their backs were all to me, I backed up under the alcove behind the machine and started making my way towards the back of the room. It looked like a dark tunnel was back there, so I could probably just wait things out once I was there.

As soon as I was under the alcove, I lost all visual on the thugs, which wasn't exactly a good thing. If Rick saw that I was gone hopefully he'd just think Batman took me out. I was busy focusing on not making any noise when gunshots rang out again. Well, there goes another one.

Two flightless birds and a bat left. We'll see how this plays out. I paused for a second, but I couldn't hear the goons' calls of panic anymore. What's happening? I inched my way out of the underpass just as I heard the crunching of glass. That had to be one of the machine's screens being smashed, but by what?

I moved out into the open and looked back towards the machine. Bat_man_ my butt. This guy was huge. Maybe it was just the armor he was wearing, but he was a towering figure, even next to the large machine.

At the moment he was circling the machine and taking out all three screens by putting his massive fist through each of them. How was there a man in that suit? He knocked out the last one and paused. He must've sensed that he wasn't alone because he turned around to look right at me.

I froze where I was standing. No wonder the thugs were afraid of him. I felt like I might melt from the glare he was giving me. Before I had a chance to do anything he was striding over towards me in large steps. My legs locked up on me. The closer he got, the scarier he was.

The look on his face was what scared me the most. He had an intense gleam in his eyes as he was watching me. Why was he looking at me like he was about to punch me in the face? I balled my hands into fists in anticipation, but my right one was obstructed by something. Of course! I was still holding a gun! Wow, and I call myself smart.

I immediately held up my hands when I realized my mistake and said, "I'm not one of them!" I was shocked to hear my voice come out that shakily. I didn't realize I was that afraid.

Batman didn't look too convinced as he glanced at my arm. Right, I was wearing an armband too. Wow, the odds were not in my favor tonight were they?

"Why are you helping Penguin's thugs if you aren't one of them?" His voice sounded like sandpaper in a garbage disposal. I always thought if bats could talk they would have a high screechy voice. Guess not the human bat.

I put my hands back down when he stopped a little ways away from me. At least he wasn't about to knock me out and leave me down here. "Penguin is making me help them. I'm sure you know how he is. He said he'd kill me if I didn't do what he said." I didn't mention to him the whole 'this may be a test to see if I'm ready to become one of his henchmen' thing. He didn't need to know about that.

He looked at me closely for a second and I could see him trying to figure out if I was lying or not. While he was doing that I decided it was probably better to put the gun away. I made sure the safety was on before tucking it in the back of my jeans. "You don't exactly seem like the kind of recruit Penguin usually enlists." Seems like he was convinced I wasn't going to try to kill him or anything.

"Maybe he's tired of working with a bunch of morons? To be honest, I don't know and I don't care. But since you're here, can you maybe show me the way out?" I honestly didn't want to be down here any longer than I had to be. I was more than ready to leave.

Without saying anything he turned on his heel and started walking in the direction we originally came in from. I took that as my cue to just stay quiet and follow. Instead of going back to the elevator though, we walked through the subway tunnel. There was another broken down train in it, but we could fit if we stuck to the wall. He wasn't saying anything, so I took it upon myself to ask what I had been wondering all night.

"What's the deal with this place anyway?" I stepped over a large chunk of cement as we kept navigating through the subway. I really hoped there weren't any other thugs down here other than the ones we left unconscious. "I mean, isn't it a little odd that this place was built to keep criminals away from civilians and whatnot, but there are still a ton of innocent people being brought in here?" Obviously I wasn't included in the innocent category, but I was still curious.

Batman kept walking and at first I thought he wasn't going to answer me, but then he finally said, "This place shouldn't have been built in the first place. Obviously it was a complete disaster." That's the understatement of the century. I mean, there were inmates walking around with high-powered guns for Pete's sake. It wasn't just one or two people either; it was the majority of the prisoners in this place.

That made me ask again, "Where are these people getting all of their guns? Someone has to be supplying them right?" I was keeping my eyes to the ground so I didn't see when Batman stopped moving. I ran straight into his back and let me tell you, it was like walking into a brick wall.

I didn't know what we were stopping for until Batman grabbed me around the waist and was carrying me up to the top of one of the train cars via some sort of wire gun he was using. It would've been neat if I were made aware of its use beforehand.

While I was still trying to get my bearings, Batman reached up and punched the ceiling. What the heck was he doing now? After a few more hits I realized he wasn't hitting the ceiling at all, he was hitting the lid to a manhole. The lid loosened and he moved it to the side before grabbing me again and pulling us up to the street above.

I stumbled forward a bit as my feet touched the slippery pavement. Before I could even say anything, Batman beat me to it. "If you follow those alleys they'll let out by a church. Make sure the entrance is clear before you go near it though. You'll be safe once you're inside." He readied his gun to use again on a building above us, but I was having none of it. He was _not _going to leave me standing in the middle of this city.

"Wait! Why can't you just take me there if it's so close?" Like seriously, at least walk me there so I don't get knifed, you jerk.

"I need to get back to the museum and stop Penguin before he causes any more damage. I've already been set back thanks to you helping him." He said in a snippy voice before turning around and getting ready to leave. "Just stay unseen and you should be fine." With those wise words he left me standing in the cold alleyway.

A lot of dirty words came to mind after that. A lot of dirty words directed towards the caped crusader. No wonder everyone in this place hates him, he's a complete jackass. Like seriously, he couldn't walk the length of an alleyway to make sure a _teenage girl_ didn't get killed? What kind of so called hero does that.

Well there was no use just standing around and waiting for a murdering psycho to stumble upon me. I kicked an empty pop can while I was walking away. Too bad that wasn't Batman's head.

I had no idea where I was heading, but Batman better pray it was to a church. If it wasn't, well . . . I don't know what I'd do, but it'd be bad. I looked up into the dark sky and noticed it was snowing again. It must never stop snowing in this place.

If I ever get out of this city, the first thing I was doing was going to the beach. I hate cold weather enough as it is. Being stuck in it all night wasn't my idea of fun. Yeah, I'd definitely be going far away when I got out of here. Whenever that was going to be. I shuddered to think if I had to stay in here for an extended period of time. I would die. That much was obvious. It's not like I was some three hundred pound dude who could just become a thug. Nope, I would totally die. Besides, even if I did get out of here I would probably go to jail anyway.

After a short little walk I ended up coming to the end of the alley. From the opening of it, I saw that there was indeed a church standing in front of me. Judging by the smoldering remains on the top portion of it, the building I had seen blown up earlier actually was a church. There was something odd about the building though. Other than the fact it was still kind of on fire, there were green question marks all over it. Hanging from the gargoyles were banners with the same acid green marks on them.

I ran a hand through my now not so straight hair as I thought of how safe this building actually looked. When I see a burning church with a super villain's apparent insignia sprayed all over it, the first thing I think of isn't some safe haven. I might as well check it out though. It's not like I had any other place to be.

Glancing both ways, I made sure there weren't any wandering thugs nearby before I started making my way over towards the church. Across from the alley I was in, I noticed there was a sort of brick wall build as a divider between the street and the building behind it. There seemed to be a hole in the wall not too far away from the alley. The hole looked just big enough for me to fit through.

Before anyone else could come around I dashed across the street and bounded through the hole. I stumbled and fell every so graciously onto my behind. Well that went well. I was getting up and brushing myself off when I noticed I wasn't alone in this little back alleyway. Standing by the side of the building was a man painting a green question mark on the bricks.

If that wasn't weird, the guy himself was definitely a little odd. He wasn't a thug, that much was apparent right away. He was far too slight in stature to be a hired help. Another weird thing was his attire. He wasn't wearing an orange jumpsuit, or any jail issued clothing. He was wearing what looked like a worn out green suit.

Well that's just my luck. I didn't know whether this guy was dangerous or not, but if I'd learned anything so far tonight, it was that most of these people were in here for a reason. I was still debating whether or not to go back through the hole or keep moving when he picked up his paint can and turned towards me. I stiffened again.

We made eye contact for a moment before his eyes narrowed. "Riddle me this, what business does a little girl have in Arkham City?" Great, I ran into a schizo this time. Honestly, I was about to just turn around and go back through the hole, it didn't look like he had a weapon on him. Other than that paint can, but he didn't look like the type to chuck a can of paint at a girl. He didn't even look like he could throw it all the way over here.

Well once again, stupid me. While I was mulling things over he pulled a handgun out of one of his pockets. You know what? Maybe I should let this guy just kill me and put me out of my misery.

"Are you going to answer the question or am I going to have to start guessing?" he asked again a little impatiently. I didn't like his attitude. Not that I liked any of these freaks' attitudes.

I don't even care at this point. I threw my hands up and started walking towards the end of the alleyway past him. If he wanted to shoot me, he could shoot me.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going? Get back here and answer my question!" While he was having his little tantrum behind me I threw my hand over my shoulder and gave him a very rude hand gesture. I was pushing my luck I knew, but if he hadn't shot me before, there was a good chance he had no intention to.

After I turned the corner of the building I finally got a good view of the church. I was definitely getting closer now. I was feeling awfully smug with myself for having stood up to a villain for the first time of the night.

As soon as I rounded the corner towards the church, my smug smirk was slapped right off of my face. I'd just walked into a group of at least ten inmates.

I was going to _kill _Batman.

A/N: (Spoiler for Arkham City) Something that I always thought was really odd is that when Batman would rescue the Riddler hostages in the game, no matter how far away from the church they were, he would just leave them in a random building and say "Go back to the church, you'll be safe." What are the odds of a bunch of unarmed medics being able to make it back to a church half way across the city and live? Tsk tsk Batman, not cool.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman or any affiliated works sadly.

At first I thought no one had seen me. After all, they were all just lounging around. The closest man to me was doing push-ups while another knelt by him counting. If I could just slowly back up, I might be able to get away without them seeing me. Too bad my name is Violet Morgan and I am the biggest klutz in the world. While I was in the process of backing up I backed straight into a crate that had a fire extinguisher on top of it. As soon as that hit the ground, ten heads snapped towards me.

At once, every man got up and stood at the ready. I heard some asking if it was the bat. They didn't have to worry too long though because their eyes almost immediately fell on me. I couldn't tell what their faces looked like under those odd two tone masks they were wearing, but judging by their body language, they were happy it wasn't the bat.

_For the love of all things sweet, run Vi. You're basically in the alley as it is, just run._ My brain was saying one thing, but my body wasn't exactly listening. I literally felt frozen to the spot, but it didn't have anything to do with the cold weather.

I heard one of the men further back let out a whistle from under their mask before he said, "That sure ain't the bat."

Another one of the goons answered, "Hell no. The bat don't have a tight little body like that." That warranted a sinister laughter from all of them. That's it; it's time to act. I started slowly backing up, trying to regain my stride and preparing to run away, but the men were ahead of me. The two men who had been closest to me came over and held me in place by my shoulders.

That's when the largest man in that group, who had a pretty big knife, came striding towards me. "I hope you don't think you're going to be leaving any time soon sweet cheeks." There was another round of laughter.

"Woah, hang on a minute. This bitch is part of Penguin's crew!" The man standing to my left said in a disbelieving voice. _How would he know anything about that? _I glanced over towards him and saw his beady little eyes staring at my arm. I followed his gaze and saw the armband still fastened around my bicep. The armband signifying that I was allied to Penguin. This just got a whole lot worse.

The mood of the group changed from pervy to hostile in the blink of an eye. They were no longer eyeing me with a certain hunger in their eyes; they were eyeing me with hostility. "So little girl, you think you can come into Two-Face's territory, actin like you own the place, and just get away with it?" The largest man said while brandishing his knife in my face.

I instantly recoiled away from the offending weapon, but the two goons held me in place. "Is that what you thought? Huh? Answer me!" With every word the man uttered, his knife got closer and closer to my face. It was so close to my face that I could distinctly see dry specks of blood on the blade. If I weren't careful mine would be on there next.

Judging by the man's increasing hostility, I decided that maybe it was best to just try and talk to him, calm him down a little bit. Too bad I was a horrible liar. "No! I wasn't trying anything. I don't even know who that Two-Face is. I just got lost." That wasn't exactly a lie.

I was looking into the man's eyes when I said this and as soon as I had finished, I saw confusion flick through them. Glancing around at the others who had formed a circle around me by now, I noticed similar looks on the other men's faces. _Now_ what was going on?

"Don't play stupid. What did Penguin send you here for? Are you supposed to be spying or something?" The large guy just kept waving that knife around in my face. Not for a second did I take my eyes off of it. To me, it was as deadly as a cobra poised to strike. "If so, you didn't exactly do a tip top job." He finished mockingly.

Before I had a chance to say anything else, the group broke out into angry chatter over what to do with me.

"Let's take 'er to Two-Face!"

"No! We should just kill the bitch now!"

"Yeah, and send her back to Penguin in pieces like he did ta Jimmy!"

The group continued carrying on until the big guy spoke up. He hadn't taken his eyes off of me the whole time the men had been bickering. "Hey! Listen up!" The men immediately stopped talking. Why did this guy get to tell all of the other men what to do? It didn't make any sense why nine men, who were pretty big themselves, all answered to one guy. They were nothing but a bunch of cowards.

He stared at me for a few more seconds in silence. I was starting to get creeped out by how silent it had become. Somewhere off in an alley, a fire could be heard crackling. Occasionally the sound of inmates laughing could be heard farther off. And then there was me. A girl left shivering in the middle of a circle of ten fully-grown men waiting to find out her fate.

The big guy shifted uneasily on his feet a little more before declaring, "I think this one should pay a special visit to the boss. I'm sure he'll have some fun torturing information out of at least one bitch tonight." He ended this a little bitterly. The others seemed to be thinking along the same lines as he was because they all let out creepy chuckles as well.

With that, the big guy motioned for the two men on either side of me to follow him. He stopped and said, "I need five guys to stand guard here." That left five with us. In addition to the two men flanking me on either side, there were two other men trailing behind us. They seemed like they could care less about coming with us though. They were just talking about missing sports or something. Nothing I really cared about.

I had to figure out where these people were taking me. To their boss obviously, but who might that be? That Two-Face guy? Wait, I'd heard that name somewhere before I'm almost certain of it. Something clicked in my head just then. Back when we first broke out of the containment building, Black Mask had mentioned him as one of the three "bosses" in this place.

After remembering that tidbit, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Obviously I had met the Penguin, who Black Mask had said he'd most likely pair up with. He hadn't said much about Two-Face, but the fact that Black Mask wouldn't pair up with him was enough to tell me I was probably being taken to my death. Not to mention the guy's name wasn't very comforting.

I had to figure out how to get out of here. I was _not_ meeting another villain. I'd gotten lucky so far with Penguin, but I didn't reckon my luck would keep up. Without moving my head, I glanced to my right and left and saw that the two goons had slackened their hold on my arms a little bit and were enjoying the scenery. The scenery being a bunch of cruddy alleys covered in nothing but garbage.

It was a good sign that they had slackened their hold on me though. It showed that they thought I wouldn't do anything. Obviously they thought I wasn't a threat. _Not that I really was._ The two behind us were still talking about sports or whatever, so they were just as oblivious. If I could get out from between these two, I would be able to get away, I was almost positive of it.

The only problem with that is the big guy in front of us. When he came into the equation I wasn't really sure what would happen. Even if by some miracle I got away from these two, there was no guarantee that I wouldn't have a knife thrown into my back before I had a chance to take five steps.

While mulling my options over, I had neglected to notice where we were going. It seemed like we were heading northwest of the church. I was still wondering about this when a helicopter flew over us. Its spotlight was trained on the streets below. For a moment I felt hope flicker inside of me until I remembered that no one in that helicopter cares about a helpless girl being taken to her death. Almost in response to that, the helicopter's light passed over us before it kept flying in the direction we were heading in.

That's when I heard the two behind us say the first interesting thing I'd heard all night, "Damn helicopters. They come and take inmates as much as they please. You know what Strange does with those poor guys right?" One of them asked the other. Since I couldn't turn around and blatantly listen, I strained my ears as much as I could to hear the conversation.

"Nah man, I don't even want to think about that. I've seen too many people drug off to the tower and never come back." This raised several questions in my head. I thought about what I'd heard about the experiments done to the inmates and shuddered. I had thought that was just gossip. And there was that Strange guy being mentioned again. _Who were these people?_

We rounded a corner and I tuned out the goons talking behind us. What I saw in front of me was enough for my heart to skip a beat. It looked like we were going to a courthouse. My first question was _why is a courthouse in the middle of a prison? _

What I was seeing frightened me. On the stairs and in front of the courthouse were more of these Two-Face thugs, but that wasn't all. There were several men kneeling on the ground in front of the thugs with their hands behind their heads. What were they doing?

As we walked closer to the front steps, I noticed the men kneeling weren't just any regular inmates. They were wearing the telltale outfits of Penguin's crew. So this is what happens when other gang members go out of their territory.

"Come on, move it!" I was rudely pushed from behind. I hadn't even realized I had stopped moving until I was thrust forward. I almost fell to the cold ground before I caught myself.

My eyes were still focused on the ground, watching my feet move, until something came into my line of sight. Upon closer inspection I realized there was a man laying face up on the stairs with blood running from his mouth. The fact that he was dead hadn't bothered me as much as what he was wearing. He was wearing full on make up. I'm not talking about blush and eyeliner; I'm talking about face paint. He was painted like a clown.

That was when the gravity of the situation hit me. I looked up and saw the Penguin thugs literally shaking. They were afraid. They knew that what happened to the clown was going to happen to them too, perhaps momentarily.

I was drug up the stairs in front of the courthouse until we reached the top. I saw the big guy talking to one of the other Two-Face guys who was wielding what looked like a machete. They were talking, and yet I didn't hear anything. I just stood there where we had stopped, watching their mouths move. I didn't hear anything but a ringing in my ears. Something was wrong.

There was a light shining on the platform. I slowly turned my head to look out beyond the stairs and saw a helicopter hovering in the air watching us. That raised my second question. _Why were the people who were supposed to be in charge of this place just standing by and watching as their inmates were being slaughtered?_ It didn't make sense. All I knew was that I needed to leave. I needed to get out of here _now._

They were laughing again, making some joke that caused the man kneeling in front of the guy holding the machete to start talking too. I assumed he was pleading. I wasn't sure for what until the man raised the machete and stabbed it into the guys back as far as it would go. After seeing that, I came back to reality. The sound of laughing hit my ears full force as the Two-Face men all rejoiced in their kill. I couldn't do anything but stare wide eyed at the man who had slumped to the ground.

"Why even bother taking that one into the court house? Its not like Two-Face needs her for anything. He's dealt with enough women for the night. Let me take care of her why don't you?"

The big guy who brought me here seemed to consider this for a second before shrugging. "How about that? Sounds like a pretty good idea don't you think?" He turned to look at me, but I just kept staring at the gaping wound in the other man's back.

"Hey, did you hear me? I asked you a question!" Not knowing what to say I just kept quiet until the man got angrier and grabbed me. He snatched me out of the hands of the two other goons and held tightly to my shoulder. He moved the knife so it was up against my cheek. He applied enough pressure to split the skin on my cheekbone. I felt warm liquid drip down my face.

"You know what, just take her, she ain't no use to the boss. Probably just found that arm band anyway." That's when he took the knife away from my face and threw me to the ground. I landed on my knees and managed to stop myself from face planting by sticking my hands out.

They just kept laughing. I was still bent over when I realized something cold was against my back. I literally froze when I understood just what the cold was coming from. _I had a gun._ How could I forget _I had a gun!_ And I called myself smart. But what was I going to do with a gun? I didn't even know how to shoot. _But they didn't know that._

I chanced a glance upwards and saw that they were laughing once again about my soon to be death. That's when I knew that if I wanted any chance at getting out of this place alive, I had to let go. I had to stoop down to _their _level.

It was there, on that bloody platform in front of the courthouse, in the spotlight of the helicopter, that I sealed my fate. I slowly stood up from my spot on the ground while reaching around to grasp the gun that was tucked into the back of my pants. _Grab it, take off the safety as fast as I can, fire, and run like hell._ That was the game plan.

When the thugs noticed I stood up they just looked at me mockingly while saying, "What, do you want to die standing up? Think that'll help you? Don't bet on it." That earned another chuckle out of the two men. I hadn't even realized the two men who had been behind me weren't there anymore. They must've moved off to the side with some other thugs. No one seemed to notice that I was reaching behind my back.

"You know what, I changed my mind, why don't you give me that." The big guy grabbed the machete out of the other guy's hand before he could protest. He was starting to come at me while holding the weapon at ready. "I'll enjoy watching you bleed to death little girl."

He was about two feet away and ready to stab me when a shot rang out. The big guy still had his hand raised over his head with the weapon aimed at me. As if in slow motion, he looked down at his chest to see a spot of blood start to seep through his uniform. He looked back up into my eyes, the eyes of his killer, before he fell on his knees and slumped over on the ground.

I hadn't even registered pulling the gun out and taking the safety off before I fired. My arm was still extended in front of me while I was busy staring at the man I'd just killed. Every thug on those steps had gone dead silent as soon as the shot rang out and hadn't talked since. It was dead silent except for the beating wings of the helicopter.

After a few more seconds I seemed to realize what I'd just done and time started to speed back up. That was when all hell broke loose. From all sides of me, men were leaping up and pulling random weapons out.

As if I was on autopilot, I turned around and sprinted down the steps of the courthouse and off to the right. I knew as long as I kept heading west I was bound to end up back in Penguin's territory. I ran as hard as I could for several blocks, but I wasn't in very good shape and I was tiring quickly. The gun was still clutched in my left hand with the safety off in case I needed it again.

I rounded another corner to the next block and wouldn't you know it, I ran onto a street with orange jumpsuit clad inmates huddled down at the end. I looked for any side alleys, but saw that all of the immediate ones were blocked off by fences or broken down cars. While searching for an escape route, some of the men from back at the courthouse rounded the corner and were coming at me.

Quickly deciding to just keep running, I took off down the street. When I was halfway there I noticed there was steam rising from a manhole not too far away. The men at the end of the street seemed to pick up on what was going on and started to spread out to catch me when I got down their way. Without even giving it a second thought I sprinted over to the manhole and began trying to lift the lid. It wouldn't budge. _No, no, no! Come on! _

The men were closing in on me from both sides when I finally lifted the lid up and slid it off enough for me to squeeze through. I got down just in time for a thug to grasp the air where I had been a moment before. I landed roughly on the dank ground below and wasted no time in getting up and sprinting into the darkness. I figured I had to end up back in Penguin's territory at some point if I just kept going one way. I wouldn't find out until later that I wasn't heading towards Penguin's territory at all. In fact, I was running in the exact opposite direction.

As I continued sprinting through the sewer, I failed to notice any of my surroundings. If I had been more alert, perhaps I would've seen the lime green smiley face spray painted onto the wall of the sewer.

I had just entered the Joker's territory.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman, obviously.

A/N: I decided to bump up the rating of this story with this chapter, since I'm getting a little paranoid about what I can and can't get away with in the T category. Just playing it safe!

I wasn't sure how far I had run; it could've been a few feet, or a mile. Everything under Arkham City looked alike. I decided to stop when my lungs sufficiently felt like they were on fire. I leant up against the wall to catch my breath and the next thing I knew, I was crumbled up in a ball on the ground. I was way too busy sobbing like a wimp to care about what kind of waste I was sitting in. I just sat there and let out all of the pain I'd been holding in since I pulled the trigger on that thug.

My arms wrapped tightly around my knees as tears streamed down my face. _What had I DONE?_ I killed someone; took someone away from their family! I could've just turned and ran. Heck, for all I knew, I may have been able to outrun the burly man if I had just tried. But now . . . well; now I'd never know.

That was just one of the million little things that went out the window as soon as I took that shot. The biggest consequence of course would be the fact that I had not only committed one crime tonight, but now another much more horrid one. If I thought I had any chance at all of getting out of this place, it was long gone after that.

I looked down at the gun in my hand. The metal was as cold as what my insides felt like right now. I felt physically and mentally sick with myself for what I did. I would never escape this place. Not really at least. Even if by some chance I did make it out of here, the horrors that I committed in here would most likely follow me for the rest of my life.

So once again, I found myself gazing down at the weapon in my hand. I didn't see how there was any other way to get out of this situation. I could end it all, end the eighteen years I've lived, end everything I've accomplished in my life. It wouldn't be hard. _No harder than the last time I pulled that trigger._

Without seeing any other way out of this, I slowly raised the gun to my head. I closed my eyes and savored the silence of the sewers for a few moments. In reality, I suppose I was savoring my last breaths. It kind of sucked that I was going to die without breathing the air of the free world.

I knew how I was going to do it. I was going to count down from ten and when I got to one, I would fire.

_Ten. _I robbed a store and killed a man tonight. _Nine. _I stooped down to some petty thieves' level in a blink of an eye. _Eight. _I'd never be able to live a normal life. _Seven. _I was alone in this world. _Six. _No one even knew I was in this place. _Five. _No one _cared_ that I was in this place. _Four. _All of the pain would go away. _Three. _It would be so easy! _Two. _Arkham City has turned me into a monster. _One. _My parents wouldn't ever know what happened to their oldest daughter.

My eyes immediately snapped open as I threw the gun away from me. What was I doing! I couldn't kill myself in this forsaken place. I couldn't put my parents through that kind of pain again. I was just being selfish. I was the exact same person I was when I came here. I wasn't a bad person. I was still _me. _I just had to keep telling myself that. It seemed like no matter how many times I repeated that in my head though, I still knew I was lying. I _wasn't _the same person who entered this place several hours ago.

Shakily, and using the wall for support, I managed to stand back up. The queasy feeling was still in my stomach, but it had settled enough to let my mind think straight again. What was going on with me? I was never impulsive. I would _never_ just decide to off myself without thinking everything through.

I looked at the gun that was lying a foot away from me. It was lying on the slimy concrete next to the flowing stream of sewage. I was disgusted with myself, but I channeled my disgust into that silver object that seemed to glint even in the near darkness of the sewer. In two short steps I stood next to the gun before kicking it into the waste. Whatever was to come, I would face myself. If I was going to die tonight, I wasn't going to die a coward. I wouldn't kill myself, if I was going to be killed, it would be by someone else's hand.

With a newfound drive, I started walking in the same direction I'd been heading before my meltdown. Hopefully I would just end up back in Penguin's territory soon enough, then I would figure everything out. Besides, if I were going to be staying in this place, I should at least be allied with someone powerful. Penguin seemed to have a good bit of pull in this place, so he would do.

At some point in my walking, I came upon a turn off in the system. If I kept going straight, I figured I'd come up on the end soon enough. This place could only be so big right? So instead of turning right, I just kept going straight.

I had no idea where I was going, or if I was even going in the right direction. All I knew was that everything down here looked exactly the same. The walls, the concrete, heck, even the sewage looked the same. I sighed and drug my hand through my hair. It was a nervous habit that wasn't helped by the fact that I was sweating so bad that my hair was clinging to the back of my neck. This place stunk too. Real bad. I wasn't sure, but I was pretty sure if I spent an extended period of time down here, I could get some serious lung disease.

It seemed that once again I had zoned out a little and when I came back into focus, I noticed something had changed. Something _really_ odd. There were lights strung up on the sides of the sewer now. That was a good sign right? I mean, obviously people were roaming around down in these parts. All I had to do was find a ladder now and I'd be home free!

Continuing on, I unconsciously quickened my pace. The sooner I got out of this crappy place, the better. No pun intended. The more I progressed through the passages, the more I started noticing there were random boxes lying around here and there. Upon closer inspection however, I realized that there was nothing inside the crates besides some hay. I still had yet to see any thugs either.

That queasy feeling was starting to come back. I just took it to be because of the horrible air quality down here, not because something was seriously wrong that my body was trying to tell me.

The more I progressed, the more activity seemed to be going on down in the passages. Obviously not actual physical activity, but there were signs of human life down here. The further in I went, the weirder it got. I mean, I knew that Penguin's crew liked marking their territory and stuff, considering how many banners they had hanging around their area, but I don't remember seeing any of these odd lights. I also noticed that some of the passages were blocked off with a vault door with the Tyger insignia on them. Too bad I couldn't pry one of those things open. My guess would be they led straight into Gotham City.

Those doors were curious though. Some of them had a spray painted smiley face on them, framed by multicolored lights. At first there weren't many of those down here, but the further I walked, the brighter and brighter these lights seemed to get. There must've been a box full of random items that the people found and decided it would be funny to make use of. I mean, I actually saw a pair of wind up chattering teeth teetering around at one point?

Turning down another corridor, I thought I could hear voices. I thought it might've been my mind playing tricks on me though, so I kept moving. I took about a dozen more steps and I knew that I hadn't been imagining things. I had actually heard people talking. When I came upon another split in the passages, the voices seemed to be coming from off to the right.

I couldn't make out what they were talking about due to something that sounded like falling water, but I could tell they were definitely thugs. Now normally, I would do something stupid and go try to listen to their conversation, which would obviously get me caught, but I had learned my lesson more than once tonight. So, thinking logically, I went to the left and avoided the strange voices.

Without even realizing it, I reached my hand out to run along the wall. I immediately pulled my hand back and started wiping it off against my jeans when I remembered where I actually was and what was probably imbedded into those walls. _Ew._

From somewhere behind me, I heard a splash of water. Immediately, I spun and around and tried to see if anything was out of the ordinary in the dim light. I couldn't seem to find anything, so I turned back to focusing on walking. When I reached the end of that corridor, the stream of murky water stopped and I saw the passage veered to the right. Right in front of me was an iron gate, or what _was _an iron gate. What was left was just a gnarled up piece of metal. _I wonder what happened there._

As another splash, louder this time, echoed behind me, I felt goosebumps start to rise up all over my body. Something wasn't right. Down the passage I had just come from I saw the near uninterrupted stream of murky water begin to ripples. Ripples that were increasingly coming towards me.

Not waiting to find out what was causing those ripples, I hightailed it down the other passage. The farther I ran, the colder it seemed to be getting. I thought that was odd as well, until I saw that there was a slight dusting of snow in this half of the sewer. If there was snow down here, it meant it had to come in somehow. Without even trying to pace myself now, I started jogging forward. That's when I caught a glimpse of moonlight streaming through a hole in the ground above the sewer with light snow flowing through it. It would've been pretty had I not been standing in a sewer in Arkham City.

I quickly walked underneath the hole and looked up. It seemed to be closed off with plywood around the sides, almost acting like a guardrail, but that darkness above it was definitely the sky. I spun from left to right, frantically looking for a ladder or some other means of climbing out, until my eyes landed on a rusty ladder off towards the right.

Before even thinking, I began ascending back up onto the earth above this hell. My lungs definitely could use some semi-clean air back in them. The ladder was old and rusty, so I had to pay special attention to where my hands were going. I didn't think tetanus shots were available in here. There were a few stairs left before _finally, _I had made it to the top.

As soon as I had hopped, which was more like tripping, over that plywood fence thing, I slumped to the ground to catch my breath. As always, the snow was steadily coming down, but I would gladly take this cold to the sewer's stuffiness any day.

I stood up and brushed myself off before trying to figure out how close to the Iceberg Lounge I was. When I looked up, I had to do a double take. Before me was a giant old factory. Now, I hadn't been in Arkham City that long, so obviously I didn't know most of the layout, but I was fairly certain there were no buildings like that near Penguin's headquarters. _Which meant . . . _

The guns being pumped confirmed my suspicions that I as in trouble for the umpteenth time that night. I slowly turned around and saw behind me four clowns pointing high-powered guns at me. Well that was unlucky. But wait, clowns?

"You. Go grab 'er." A clown with what looked like a snowman head on with body armor told another one. I began backing up when a large man started advancing towards me. His gun was still trained on my chest.

My legs hit the wooden barrier and I suddenly wished I were back down in that grimy sewer, if it meant I would be away from these guys. I seriously needed some strategy if I was just going to run around Arkham City. I was getting kidnapped entirely too often for my taste. These guys seemed different from the others who'd taken me before though. They seemed more militant. It might have had something to do with how heavily armed they were. But there was something else, something in their eyes. They had a scary glint to them, a seriousness that the others hadn't.

The big guy kept coming at me and finally yanked my upper arm so that I was jerked towards him. "Who do we have here?" Up close, I could see how crusty and grimy his face paint actually was. Whether it was dirt or paint I wasn't sure, but there was certainly a lot caked in his skin. He looked like he could use a shaving too . . . and a breath mint.

"What're we gonna do with this one?" One of the men asked in a screwy voice. I shuddered at the pure irony of my luck tonight. Every time I thought I was in the clear, karma had to come back and bite me in the ass. Safe to say, I was regretting tossing my gun away now. _Who was I kidding, I _was _a coward._

"Oh, we're going to have fun with her. No need to tell J about her too soon." The one holding me said in a bit of a hushed voice, like someone may be listening. The others nodded their clown like faces in agreement and began moving towards us a little bit.

Then a different man murmered, "Yeah, it's not like he knows what's going on lately anyway, bein sick and all." Whoever J was, no matter how sick, these guys were obviously afraid that someone might hear what they were saying, and that honestly scared me. Obviously he was someone to be feared.

"Well then, I guess that's settled." I wasn't sure what was settled until I felt a blunt object whack me in the back of the head. I was falling forward, inching closer to the pavement, as my world went black.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** I'm will never own Batman.

**A/N:** Okay guys, I am SOOOOO sorry for being gone that long. School hasn't been kind lately and that's not really an excuse for me being gone for like a month, but I'm back!

_I was laying down somewhere. It didn't smell like the warm homey scent of my house. It smelled aesthetic and cold. That's when the pain hit._

_ My body was sore and I had a killer headache. It felt like I had been plowed over by a three hundred pound linebacker. Something wasn't right though. My eyes flew open and I saw that I was in a hospital room hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor. What happened? Why was I here? And more importantly, where were my parents?_

_ Just as I was thinking this a good looking doctor made his way through the door while reading something on a clipboard. He looked up with his bright blue eyes and saw that I was looking around the room; most likely looking like a deer caught in the headlights. After a few seconds he said, "Well, well, welcome back to the real world." He gave an award-winning smile that showed off his perfectly straight teeth. _

_ Quickly, I sat up and felt another wave of pain shoot through by body. I laid back down against the hard hospital mattress and tried to get comfortable. I opened by mouth to speak, but nothing out, just a small squeak. The doctor quickly put the chart down and went over to a small table I hadn't seen in the corner of the room. After pouring me a glass of water he came back over and handed me the cup. I nodded in thanks as I downed the cool liquid._

_ "You're going to want to take it easy for a while. After being in an accident like that, it's amazing you weren't hurt worse." I handed the cup back after I was finished. When the word _accident_ passed through his lips, a million questions immediately buzzed through my head. The main one being, _what accident?

_I seemed to be able to find my voice this time and asked, "What are you talking about? What accident?" At my questioning, he paused in reading his chart and slowly looked up at me. _

_ Almost tentatively, the doctor asked, "What is the last thing you remember?" Well that was a stupid question. Obviously I didn't remember much, but definitely nothing about an accident. The last thing I could remember was driving to the mall to pick up my little sister Olivia, and . . . oh no. Oh no, oh no oh no!_

_ I was still having my panic attack, trying to put the pieces together when the doctor spoke again, "You were driving home with your sister when you had a head on collision with a drunk driver." It was like a dam had broke inside of me. My heart was felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. _

_ This didn't stop the doctor from continuing though, "You were banged up pretty bad. You have three broken ribs, a broken wrist, and a pretty bad concussion. We were getting worried about you not waking up. But other than that, there's just some other bruising that will leave you sore for a while." He set the chart back down and looked at me fully now. _

_ I was still thinking back to everything he was saying. I glanced down at my arms and noticed that I had a lime green cast on my right wrist that extended up to my elbow. I glanced back up at the still staring doctor and asked, "You said you were worried about me not waking up. How long have I been out?" I hoped it wasn't too long. But I would be able to tell if I'd been out more than a day or two right?_

_ "You've been in a sort of pseudo coma state for the past week and a half." A week and a half! Other than a headache, and some sore ribs, I didn't feel any different than I did normally. I certainly didn't feel like I'd been asleep for nine or ten days. But that was a long time, why weren't my parents here? They should've been allowed in my hospital room right?_

_ Despite having just drunk a whole glass of water, my throat suddenly felt too dry to speak again. What was going on? There was something he wasn't telling me I could tell. He seemed to be looking at me with pity in his eyes. I didn't need his pity. I needed answers. _

_ With a small, tentative voice I asked, "And Olivia, she's been out of the hospital for a while now right?" My voice cracked at the end of my question. I didn't want to keep looking at the doctor's pitying face._

_ "Violet I'm sorry, but your sister didn't make it." With those words it felt like a knife was thrust into my chest. That couldn't' possibly be true. I had been the one driving; I should be the dead one. I wasn't going to cry, not until I got all of my answers._

_ I looked back up at the doctor and quietly asked, "How?" I honestly didn't understand it. If it was head on, I should've had the brunt of the damage. With my side taking more from the drifting truck driver. _

_ "You should talk to your parents when you're feeling stronger. You've just woken up and we don't need you regressing from any shock." The doctor told me, but I didn't want to hear any of it. I just wanted to get some damn answers!_

_ "Don't tell me to talk to my parents. I want to know. I want to know how I killed my sister." I spit out with ferocity and venom in my voice. This tough façade wouldn't last long. I could feel the tears start to form in my eyes. There was no way I could ask my parents. I wouldn't be able to take their grief stricken faces and judgmental eyes. After all, I was the older sibling; I was supposed to protect my baby sister. They had trusted me enough with a car to drive my sister around, even though I had only had my license for a few days. I had always been responsible._

_ He looked like he was trying to figure out whether he should tell me or not. For his sake he better. "When the truck hit your car, it hit only about half of it, the half you were in. You took the brunt force of the impact, but were left trapped between your seat and the dash." He paused and looked at me._

_ So I hadn't technically hit the car _fully_ front on. Just on my side, so why was my sister not alive? I looked back at him and nodded for him to continue. None of this was adding up. _

_ "Your sister wasn't wearing her seatbelt." My anger was replaced with panic now as I tried to picture the scene in the car that night. I tried, but I couldn't remember seeing if she had her seatbelt buckled or not. I felt like hitting myself, that was one of the lectures my mother gave me when she handed over the keys; never drive drunk, don't take more than two people with you at any time, and _always_ wear your seatbelts. That included making sure other people in the car with me wore their seatbelts too. Just because you are a cautious driver doesn't mean that other people are._

_ The doctor and I stared at each other for a while before he just stopped beating around the bush and came out and said it; the words that would change my life forever. "She was ejected from the car. When the emergency crews arrived, she had already passed away." He moved to stand next to my bed now, but my eyes stayed on the spot where he was just standing, unfocused and swimming with tears. _

_ "I'm very sorry Violet." He awkwardly patted my casted arm before walking out of the room. _

_ It was then that I cried. Normally I never showed emotions. The overly emotional girls I went to school with were always crying about something or other, but I prided myself in never crying in public. But now, I cried. I cried and sobbed. I was ashamed with myself. I should be the dead one. As I cried I could feel myself sinking into a dark abyss._

_ I hated myself. I hated myself for being so stupid, for not checking if she had her seatbelt on, for not driving carefully, for not _protecting _my little sister, I hated the color lime green, I hated having been knocked out for so long. _

_ But most of all, I hated having been out so long that I missed my baby sister being put into the cold ground for eternity. Because, let's be honest, they wouldn't hold up a funeral for a week and a half just so an innocent girl's murderer could be in attendance._

I was laying down somewhere. It didn't smell like the warm homey scent of my house. It smelled metallic and cold. That's when the pain hit.

My head was throbbing so much that it felt like my brain was pulsating inside of my skull. Hopefully it wasn't. I slowly sat up and brought my hand to the back of my head. I could feel a lump the size of a golf ball starting to form. When I gingerly pushed on it, searing pain shot through my head. I decided not to push on it again.

Wherever I was, it was dark. There weren't any lights, except for the light from the moon shining through some dirty looking windows facing what looked like a giant lake.

Deciding that it was no use just lying on the dirty ground, I slowly started to stand up, ignoring my throbbing head. My guess would be that I had a nasty concussion, but I was no doctor.

Glancing all around me, I saw that I was in a factory of some sort. There were boxes everywhere and an assembly line stretched the length of the room. I was just about to go over to the boxes and check if there was anything in them that I could use for self-defense if need be, when the large steel doors to the room were thrown open.

"Well, well, well, looks like sleeping beauty finally decided to come back from la la land." A large thug in a grey hoodie said to the four other men who followed him in. Immediately, my eyes darted to the various weapons the men were carrying in their hands. The lead guy in the grey sweatshirt was carrying a long black baton looking thing, while the others carried everything from knives to baseball bats and even some guns slung over their shoulders.

I didn't say anything as they inched farther into the room. I couldn't move, where would I go? There were no exits in this room except the door they had just strolled through. So helplessly, I watched as the five of them formed a loose circle around me in the middle of the room.

Their leader cocked his head to the side in a gesture of mock pity that just made his painted clown face look even uglier than it already was. "What's wrong? You're awfully quiet. Me and my friends just want to talk to ya."

Not knowing what to do I simply say, "About what?" I didn't know why this was so funny, but apparently those guys thought it was hilarious. I glanced around the circle and noticed that they were all either wearing clown masks or more of that hideous face paint.

"Oh, nothing really. The lovely weather in this shithole, the Bat, Gotham's free world, and oh yeah," The hooded thug beat that baton like thing against his leg and a blue spark came to life the end of it. Oh hell. "how about telling us what's going on over in Cobblepot's territory, ya dirty bird."

So this was an interrogation. Too bad I didn't know anything, but somehow I didn't think these guys would take that as an answer. I tried anyway, "Sorry to disappoint, but I don't know anything. I just got in here tonight." I didn't let my fear seep into my voice, no matter how terrified I was on the inside. If I'd learned one thing in here it was to not show your fear.

"You say you just got in here and don't know anything? Well then, I guess this was just a big misunderstanding." I continued to look at him with a face that didn't betray any emotions. "Well then I guess you can go." He stepped aside in a gesture that signified I could walk right out of the room. I wasn't stupid.

"Go ahead." He held an arm out and in the pale moonlight I could see a smile that looked more like a grimace plastered on his face. This was all just an act and I knew it.

When I didn't move he lowered his arm and said, "Well maybe you aren't as stupid as you look." He then made some hand motion to the people behind me and I felt someone smack me in the back of the head with something. Black specks immediately popped into my vision, but they hadn't hit me hard enough to knock me out. I was pushed to my knees and felt my jacket being helplessly thrust off of my frame so that I was left in a black form fitting t-shirt.

One of the men let out a low whistle and I heard a deep voice say, "Damn, who'd have thought this one had a body under that ugly jacket." I heard murmurs from the other men but I focused on a piece of straw lying on the floor about a foot from me. I wouldn't let these idiots heckle me.

That's when the one with the sweatshirt said, "I'm only going to ask you one time, and I expect an answer. What was Penguin doing with Freeze? The boss needs the snowman." The boss. That must've been that Joker guy. The sick one.

I looked up at him and said, "What's freeze? I don't think he has any ice over there." Two men glanced at each other with faces that clearly said _this bitch is crazy_.

"Not freeze like an object, Freeze like the man you moron." The guy in hooded jacket said while walking around me like a shark would its prey. That was a funny name for a man, Freeze. I was about to say something else, but I felt something connect to my back that caused me to convulse in pain. I fell forward onto all fours from the shock of being, well shocked. The leader had just hit me with that stun stick.

The stun stick left me feeling shaky and as I sat back onto my knees to look at my now scraped up hands, I noticed I couldn't stop them from shaking. I was starting to feel light headed as well. That was probably because I hadn't eaten anything since around 7:30 when Channing and Harper had taken me out to dinner. I didn't know what time it was now, but it had to be around three in the morning. Plus, it didn't help that I'd been running around a waste ridden city for the last however many hours.

"Now, are you going to quit playing dumb and tell us what we need to know? Or are you going to keep being difficult?" The hooded man said in a breathy voice right next to my ear. He was too close to comfort.

"You can keep asking, but you aren't going to get anything out of it. I barely even know the Penguin. Sorry." I knew I was playing with fire, but instead of feeling fear now, all I felt was anger. It was like something inside of me had finally snapped. This whole night I had been running from these people in some way or another, being afraid of them, but why? I'm done being weak. I'm done being afraid. I'd already killed a man and sealed my fate, so what was a few more?

As the grey hooded man lunged at me and stunned me with that stick again, instead of staying down this time, I took my time to recover from the initial shock then spun around and landed a punch right on his jaw. I drew my hand back and watched as he stumbled backwards.

Everyone in the room got quiet. There were no laughs or murmurs anymore. Five pairs of eye were trained on my darkening ones. I dared that guy to come at me again.

Of course he would, "You're going to regret that bitch." He started storming towards me, but he gave the stun stick to one of the other guys and instead pulled out a gun.

As he got to me and pulled my head to look at him, I was tempted to spit in his face but our little struggle was cut short as a woman's voice, if you could call it that, came on over the loud speakers. The men immediately stopped their glaring and focused their eyes on the speaker in the corner of the room.

"Listen numskulls, the bat's on his way here for Mistah J. We're gonna give him a little surprise when he gets here. If ya ain't doing anything important, and I know all of you ain't, get up to the Funland and pronto! Mistah J's all better and tonight's the night the bat dies!" She squealed in a loud voice.

I was left cringing from her deep Brooklyn accent and horrible grammar. Whoever Joker was though, I'm assuming that was Mistah J, it seems like he's better. The thugs in the room immediately brightened up and got giddy looks on their faces. Apparently my left hook was all but forgotten after that announcement.

"Well, you heard it boys! J's all better." He gave a mocking smile, as he got right up in my face. "How about we get to him before the bat gets here and let him have a little chat with our new feathered friend here." This night just keeps getting better.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Same as always, I don't own Batman.

I must've been quite a sight at this point in the night. I'd been in here now for however many hours, I didn't even know, but I didn't need a mirror to know I looked like a train wreck. I could feel still feel the blood dripping down my face from where I got cut back at the courthouse. I would definitely need a tetanus shot at some point.

On top of everything else wrong with me right now, being pushed through concrete hallway after concrete hallway was not a pleasant experience. The fact that my escorts kept 'accidentally' banging me off of the occasional wall didn't do too much for me in that department either.

I didn't know where we were heading, just who we were looking for. I guess I was finally going to meet this infamous Joker guy. Obviously he was someone with considerable power judging by his henchmen's fears. Then again, Penguin's men were scared to death of him too, but now that I step back and really think about it, he doesn't seem like someone to be feared. Maybe I was just starting to lose my mind like the rest of these people. It must be something in the air.

"So whadda ya think J will do with her?" I heard a squirrely voice ask from behind us. Our group was down to three men. The other two bozos went off to try to find Joker. Somehow I didn't think this guy would want to take the time to meet with some nobody teenage girl when he had Batman on his way here. _Batman. I don't even want to think about him right now._

"I dunno man but I hope he let's us finish her off." Grey hoodie said with utter contempt in his voice. It's not like he didn't deserve getting punched in the face. He's just lucky I didn't get my hands on that stun stick. He'd really be crying then. We continued walking in silence as we navigated through the confusing hallways throughout the steel mill. Everything in this place was dirty. Not that anything in Arkham City was clean.

It didn't take me long to notice a recurring theme throughout the steel mill's hallways. There were signs everywhere displaying the name of the steel mill; _Sionis Industries. _Something about that name rang a bell in my head, but for the life of me I couldn't remember where I'd heard it before. Hell, at this point I could've imagined ever hearing it in the first place.

"Hey! Lenny!" One of the guys who had left our group was trotting towards us. So the grey hoodie guy was Lenny. What a weird name for a clown.

"J's on his way up to the funhouse. If you wanna talk to him you're gonna have to do it before he gets there." The thug spit out breathlessly.

"Fine." Lenny said before looking down at me. "Looks like you're walkin to your death little girl. Enjoy your final moments now." He darkly chuckled while increasing his pace and pulling me by the arm at the same time. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I was walking to my death tonight, I'd be quite a few dollars richer. Also, I'm amazed my arm hasn't fallen out of its socket yet. Talk about some serious manhandling.

We entered a small room that looked identical to every other room in this place so far. Concrete walls, grimy slime on the concrete walls, miscellaneous boxes and crates setting around, and oh yeah how could I forget, random henchmen.

It seemed that that room was just another of the many rooms we were passing through since we walked around the elevator looking contraption in the center of it and exited through another door. This time the door let us out into a bigger room. As soon as we stepped into the room I was overcome by a feeling of creepiness, for lack of better words. There was no one else in the room save for the three henchmen and I. They led me down a short set of stairs and had me stand in the middle of the room.

As I glanced around at my surroundings I noticed an old crane sitting in the back of the room. I didn't really know why that would be in this room but I figured it had something to do with the giant pile of wood laying in a sloppy pile in the middle of the room. It looked like there had been a sign hanging above the random doorway up above us before it was torn down and scattered all over the floor. _How the heck would you even get up there?_

None of the men with me were saying anything. They seemed nervous to be honest. It was clear that they were afraid of their boss. Hell, everyone in this city was afraid of the Joker, or at least from what I could tell. I was just beginning to wonder if we had indeed missed this man when the door we had just came through slammed open and the sound of demented laughter hit my ears. And when I say demented laughter, I mean full-blown psychotic laughter.

The three henchmen around me stiffened up immediately. Almost hesitantly, I turned my head to where a tall, yet incredibly thin man wearing a purple suit was striding down the stairs towards us. The second I laid eyes on this guy I knew exactly why people were afraid of him. He was terrifying. If the purple suit wasn't enough to make a person wonder about this man's mental health then the green hair and complete make-up job definitely would. He took his persona seriously that's for sure.

I couldn't read this man at all either. He was smiling in a way that came off as joyous, but his eyes told something different. I regretted looking the man in his eyes the second I did. There was something about them. They had a certain gleam about them, normally I'd think it was meant to accompany his happy facial expression, but I could tell it was something different. They looked murderous and unstable.

When he finally came to a stop in front of us, I found that I couldn't stop staring into those demonic eyes of his. He seemed to be staring right back into mine as well though, almost like he was gazing into my soul. It was like that for a while, or maybe it was just a few seconds, I didn't really know at this point.

Finally though the Joker spoke, "Welllllll boys," He spoke in a way that made his words drone on in a lazy, yet chipper like voice. It was unsettling. _Just like everything else about this man._ "A little birdie told me you had a surprise for me!" His dialect was so unique it was unreal. He paused and drew out his words like they were part of a carefully orchestrated song. "I sure hope this _isn't it._" And just like that, his tone switched to one full of venom and malice. I could feel the men beside me reel backwards just from the sheer force of his voice.

He broke eye contact with me and glared at his henchmen with that smile still plastered on his face. I was starting to think it was permanent. With him looking away from me for a moment, I realized that there was someone else standing with him.

That someone was the only other female I'd seen in Arkham City the whole night. She, like the Joker, was dressed in a jester-like fashion. She had bleach blonde hair that was pulled into child like pigtails. Her red and black outfit consisted of a belly shirt and skintight pants. First off, I didn't know how she wasn't freezing in this place. Secondly, it was amazing she was still alive wearing an outfit like that around a bunch of men like these. She seemed perfectly at ease though, if not a little inattentive to her surroundings. She was simply gazing at the Joker with a dreamy expression on her face. That must've been the girl on the loud speaker.

"Boss, we found her roamin' around outside." Lenny explained after a beat of silence. "She's one of Penguin's people. Thought you'd like havin a go a her now that you're feelin better." He continued to explain his reasoning while the Joker just gazed at him with that creepy smile plastered on his face.

"And here _I_ was thinking you all pitched in and got me something more . . . meaningful?" He stood up straight then and placed his gloved hand to his chin in a mock expression of thought before saying, "I actually thought for once maybe you all had done your job and brought me, oh I don't know, _THE BAT?" _He finished it off with a demonic growl before leaning back towards us and smiling again.

"Ha! She ain't even that pretty!" The blonde standing behind him said in her annoyingly high-pitched voice. _No one naturally has a voice like that. _I glared over at her make-up smothered face and contemplated giving her a piece of my mind, but somehow I didn't think that would go over too well with the Joker standing right there. "Course, not everyone can be as great lookin as me, right Puddin!" She turned her gaze back on the Joker, whom I couldn't believe let her call him that name. She didn't seem too bright though.

"Right you are Harley!" He said without sparing her a glance. Instead, he focused his gaze back on me. Slowly, he approached our little group that was still huddled in the middle of the room. Harley meanwhile was following close behind him looking like a lost puppy. "But seeing as how she isn't the bat, I don't really have any use for her." He paused, "Unless she has some sort of special power or something she's trying to hide." He got right in my face to the point where I could feel his hot breath drift across my face. Odd, it didn't have a smell, none at all.

He continued to mock examine my face by closing one of his eyes and even tapped my forehead with one of his gloved fingers before tiring of this and backing up a little. I felt like I could breathe again with this little bit of room.

"I guess that's a no then." He sighed dramatically once again and turned his sadistic smile towards the henchmen who had been uncharacteristically quiet up until this point. "Is this all you imbeciles have to offer then?" He asked in a sickeningly sweet voice that was completely fake.

I could hear the thugs shift behind me in what I assumed was them looking nervously at each other. I don't really know what they thought the Joker could do with a teenage girl, but obviously it wasn't this.

"Well . . . yeah. But I mean, c'mon boss! She could know what's been happenin over in Penguin's territory. We jus' have to make her talk is all!" Even to me that didn't sound like a very solid argument. Obviously the Joker didn't think so either.

What ensued next happened so fast that I didn't even register it at first. One second the Joker had been standing there looking peaceful and smiling like his psychotic self, the next he pulled a revolver out of nowhere and shot Lenny right in the forehead. I jumped not only from the abruptness of the gunshot, but also from the splattering of blood I felt hit me. I fought the urge not to gag as the hot liquid slowly ran down my still bare arms.

Laughing like a giddy child, he straightened out and looked at the remaining people near me. "Ha ha ha he he! Oh you all just never learn do you!" He sobered up after seeing what I assumed were the henchmen's and my horror filled faces. But no, he couldn't just stop, "You just need to learn to lighten up and enjoy yourselves like Harley and me! Right Harles?" He finally glanced at the blonde and she looked like she was about to explode with excitement. It was pretty pathetic.

She started laughing too and said, "Of course Mistah J!" There was something seriously wrong with these people.

"You're both freaks." I said in what I assumed to be under my breath, but judging by the complete silence that overtook the room I think it's safe to assume it was a lot louder than I intended it to be.

Harley looked pissed while the Joker just looked curious. He tilted his head to the side a little and said, "What was that? I didn't quite hear you?" He was still holding his gun, but not in a way that was pointing deliberately towards my head.

I don't know what possessed me. I must be seriously losing my head but because of lack of sleep or just being completely fed up with everything in here tonight, I spit out, "You've got to be the biggest psychopath I've seen so far." _Oh hell._

He surprisingly didn't react. He did however have a certain new gleam in his eyes. It wasn't murderous, maybe amused, but not angry. Unfortunately someone else took offense to the comment that was directed at him. That someone came in the form of a petite blonde. I was too busy glaring at him to notice when she lunged at me. I definitely felt her right hook hit me in the jaw however. For someone who was so slight in stature, she sure packed a powerful punch. _Literally._ The force of the impact forced me to stumble backwards into a crouched position.

"Harley! Play nice!" He started giggling manically again then abruptly stopped, "Would ya look at the time! I've gotta get ready, my bestest buddy's probably almost here! What kind of host would I be if I wasn't ready for my guest?" With that he turned around and started over towards the stairs across from the ones we came down. Harley immediately stopped glaring me and skipped after him.

Opening a door that blended into the wall so well that I didn't even see, the Joker was about to climb the stairs with Harley hot on his heels when he spun around and pushed her, pretty violently, down the first few stairs. She landed with a sound, "Oomf!" on the concrete floor.

"Silly Harley, you can't come up here. I have a play date with Bats and _you _aren't invited. So go make yourself useful and stall him while I make myself pretty. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" With those final crazy chuckles, he slammed the hidden door once again. For a second everything was quiet. All of us were frozen where we were standing, looking towards where Harley was still on the ground, staring at the closed door. Suddenly it opened back up and the Joker said, "Oh yeah, and feel free to take care of that one." He pointed to me and winked before closing the door once again.

Harley stood up and nonchalantly brushed herself off, acting like the love of her life didn't just toss her down a couple of stairs like a worthless rag doll. _Yeah, she wasn't fooling anyone._ "Well, I'd love ta stay boys, but you heard Mistah J! Toodles!" She blew a kiss at the henchmen and ran from the room.

When the door closed behind her lithe form it was like the air in the room loosened up again. The two men behind me, who hadn't been shot in the head, each grabbed a shoulder and hoisted me back up. They were about to say something when the door opened again. What I assumed would be that blonde idiot coming back through was actually the guest of honor for the night. _That jackass. _

Batman came rushing at the two henchmen while I skirted around the fight. Best to just get out of here now. _It's not like Batman was going to help me out of the building._ I hopped up over the railing while he was still distracted and snuck out of the door he'd just entered through. Now in retrospect, I guess it wasn't the smartest idea to go running around a huge factory that was filled with people that wanted to kill me and that I'd never been in before. But, seeing as how I've been punched, cut, carted around this cesspool of a city, and man handled all night, at this point I could care less.

After that, I just took off. I was running through every possible door I came across. Eventually I knew one of them had to lead to an exit. Every now and then I'd enter a room and have to duck behind a bundle of crates or crouch under a desk when a group of thugs would run by. It seemed like every thug in the building was headed to where the Joker and Batman were. _Yeah, Batman would've probably told me to stay in that room like a sitting duck._ My opinion of Batman was getting lower and lower as the night progressed.

I ran through another door and came out into a massive room that was steaming hot. In the center of the room on the lower level, I saw a giant pot filled with something that looked like lava. I didn't want to think of what could happen to me if I was caught in this room.

Without another thought I took off across the catwalk like railing around the room towards the opposite doorways. I was almost to the other side of the room when I slowed down. I wasn't alone. While standing in the doorway on the other side of the room, I turned around and saw a woman hop off of the platform above the opposite exit where I'd just come from. Had she been there that whole time and I hadn't noticed? I couldn't make out whom she was but she definitely wasn't Harley. It looked like she was wearing all black and had long brown hair, but that's all I could see before she disappeared into the shadows.

I stood there staring into space for a few seconds before shaking my head and taking off again out the door. I passed through a few more rooms, each as dilapidated as the others before coming to a deserted looking hallway with light gleaming through a doorway at the end of it. Through the windows on the door I could vaguely make out the bay beyond it. _It must let out behind the steel mill._

Before I knew it, a small smile slid onto my face. _I was going to make it out of the Joker's lair alive! _I was so relieved that I made my way towards the door to my freedom without taking notice of my surroundings. I stopped dead in my tracks however when I heard ghostly chuckles followed by coughing coming from one of the abandoned rooms off of the hallway.

_There's no way he got over here that quickly. _I knew I didn't know my way around the steel mill that well, but I would've had to run into the psychotic freak at some point if he were making his way through the building. Certainly Batman wouldn't let him escape that easily.

As quietly as I could, quiet for me anyway, I inched my way towards the doorway. I peeked in so only one of my eyes had a good view of the room. It looked like an old office of sorts with a full view of the bay behind it. The large windows had moonlight streaming through them at the moment, casting the office in a ghostly glow. I thought maybe I'd just been hearing things until I noticed something move in the back corner of the room.

I froze up as soon as I saw what it was. There was a man in the room, no, not a man, the Joker. But, he didn't look like the Joker I'd just seen. This Joker looked sickly, deathly so. Whether it was a trick from the moonlight or just my eyes messing with me, it looked like his skin had erosions all over it. His perfect purple suit I'd seen him wearing not even twenty minutes ago was now tattered and had patches all over it.

After taking in his sad form in full, I noticed what he was actually doing. He was holding a bottle of something that was glowing a bright blue in one hand and pouring something else into it with the other. All throughout his ministrations he kept silently chuckling to himself. It was eerie, almost like there was a joke that only he knew about. I was too enthralled by the sight in front of me to run away like I should've been doing.

He set the new concoction down on the table before taking a syringe and sucking the liquid into it. He started chuckling again before injecting himself. His arm didn't look much better off than his face, and that was saying something. While squirting the last bit of liquid into his arm he sighed and said, "Oh Bats, when will you learn you can't get rid of me that easily. He he he he!" He only managed to laugh for a short while before bursting into a fit of coughs once again.

I didn't know what he had mixed together; let alone why he just injected himself with it. Maybe that stuff was keeping him alive. _He needs all the help he can get by the looks of it. _

Deciding that I'd seen enough, I started to slowly back up. I'd backed up away from the room enough now that I should've been good to go, except I didn't see a pile of boxes sitting on the floor by the office across the hall. _I'm screwed._

Hurriedly, I turned to sprint towards the exit when the Joker, Joker look-alike, fake Joker, whoever he was, came out of the room and fired off a shot from the gun he was holding. At first I thought he'd just fired a warning shot, but then I felt the searing hot pain in my left arm. _Add getting shot to my list of disasters tonight._

I glanced down at my arm and saw blood begin pouring out of the wound. It hit at an odd angle though, that I could tell right away. Faintly, I heard a click, causing me to look back at the doorway and see the Joker messing with his gun. He'd just tried to shoot again, but seemed to have run out of bullets. _Lucky me._

"Well that's bad luck!" He said before bending over with his hands on his knees and coughing again. _I can get away while he's distracted._ I started making my way towards the door once again. I was within three feet of the door when I felt a bony hand grab my shoulder and spin me around. I caught a glimpse of his rotted face for a split second before he pistol-whipped me. Shot and disoriented now, I fell to the ground and stayed there. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't get up.

From my spot on the dirty rug I vaguely registered explosions happening from outside of the steel mill. Then, whether it was because of my nausea or because it was literally happening, the steel mill shook almost like something hit it. My vision was blurring on and off but I could make out the Joker standing above me glancing out the window before he said, "Oooh! The party's started! I've got places to be. It's a shame I didn't have another bullet to put in your head, you weren't supposed to see any of that. He he! But I don't think you'll be going anywhere anytime soon. Try not to have too much fun without me!" With that he turned around and walked back into the darkness of the steel mill.

I didn't know how long I lay there, bleeding and disoriented. My vision was still getting blurry at random times, so I could only occasionally see normally. From the floor I could see a sign hanging above the door. _That door was supposed to be my ticket out of here._ The sign was just like several others I'd seen during my short stay in the steel mill. It simply read, _Sionis Industries._ Why was that name so familiar?

Out of the darkness, a shape was forming, or was that my mind playing tricks on me? No, there was definitely something in the shadows. _Please don't be the Joker coming back._ Out of the darkness I heard a rough voice say my name. Who was that? I knew that voice.

My vision went back to the ceiling as I waited for whoever was there to do something. A black face swam into my vision. _Batman?_ I didn't think Batman would take the time to come find little old me while everything else was going on. Whatever _everything else_ actually was. I couldn't figure out who was leaning down and scooping me up into their arms until I caught sight of their blackened face again, but this time with the _Sionis Industries _sign in the background.

This man was wearing a black mask, but it definitely wasn't Batman.

A/N: I am **SO** sorry for such a long wait. There really is no excuse for my delay. I hope this extra long chapter makes up for my insane absence!


	13. Chapter 13

Someone was carrying me, someone who seemed vaguely familiar. I tried as best as I could to focus on this person's face, but my vision was all over the place. Trying to focus on this person's face was like trying to see the bottom of a swimming pool full of people splashing around.

If nothing else, I at least had enough sense to realize we were outside of the steel mill. The drastic drop in temperature cued me in on that. Cold wisps of air were now biting at my bleeding arm through the hole in my jacket. _I can't believe I actually got shot._ If I were a little more lucid I'd probably be screaming my head off in pain. I've always had an extremely low tolerance for pain. Go figure.

"Don't even think about dying before we get there." The rasped voice of my pseudo savior barked down at me. It was then that I realized he had been talking for a while. I just hadn't been paying attention and as such, hadn't heard a single work that he'd said.

But that voice, I knew that voice. It was one of the few voices in here that didn't have me on edge the second it hit my ears. I hadn't heard that voice for a couple of hours, not since we'd been separated.

_Black Mask._

I closed my eyes tightly before opening them again and focusing as hard as I could on his face. Upon seeing the charcoaled looking skull, there was no doubt left in my mind as to who was carrying me. It was like a morbid version of a groom carrying his new wife. Too bad this bride was bleeding and pistol-whipped into a stupor.

I was still focusing in on his face when his haunting brown eyes met my own. It was hard to tell what kind of emotions the man was experiencing since the "mask" that was covering his face had little to no movement, minus when he talked. Now that I was this close to his face though I really wondered if he actually _could_ remove the mask or if it was permanent. The small patch of smooth skin showing through a missing piece of his mask on his forehead led me to believe that it could indeed be removed. There may actually be a man behind that blackened face of death. He was kind of like my personal grim reaper, taking me to the afterlife. _Way to stay positive, Vi._

As I stared up at his face, I got a sudden urge to do something that, if I were in a right state of mind, I would _never_ do. Seriously, I must have really been trippy and out of my mind because before I could stop myself I lifted my arm, the one that wasn't shot, and prodded at the bottom of his mask. I noticed it stopped right at the top of his neck. It was pretty tight to his skin so I started using my nail to try to pry it away. This thing fit his face like a glove.

I was still zoning in and out while prodding at his mask when he finally jerked his head back and growled, "I will drop you." Ouch. No need to be so touchy. Although, in hindsight, I guess I really shouldn't have been poking at the man who was trying to help me out. I blame my current mental state.

"I jus wanna see you face…" It may have made sense in my mind, but as soon as it left my mouth, I realized how garbled my speech really was. I sounded like a drunk. My arm limply fell back down to my side as I let my head go slack and fall back against his sturdy chest.

"The mask doesn't come off." His voice made his chest vibrate, which in turn, made his chest rattle against my resting head. He didn't sound mad exactly, just….kind of over it. _Awkward._

"Where're we goin?" Came my slurred question. Might as well change the subject since things just got _real _weird.

He glanced down at my face again while he continued to walk. I couldn't tell where we were going but I could tell we were skirting around in back alleys trying to avoid what I assumed were the Joker's men.

I assumed wrong.

One minute he was carrying me through some alley, and the next, a building not even thirty feet away was hit by something that seemed like a bomb. _What. The. Hell._

My ears were still ringing when I noticed a helicopter lazily drifting over the alleyway we were in. I gasped in pain as Black Mask jerked his body backwards and slammed against a brick wall, jostling me, before sliding down to the dirty ground. Silent tears of pain were sliding down my cheeks from the throbbing caused by the sudden movement. His grip on me tightened as he pulled me closer into him.

Glancing up into his face from my current position in his lap, I could see him focusing on the helicopter seemingly floating above us. It's spotlight was drifting over the buildings in the surrounding area. _What would happen if it spotted us? Why was he so afraid?_

I didn't have to wait long for my answer because not even a minute later something completely unexpected happened. The helicopter seemed to zero in on a spot not too far away from the opening of our alley and opened fire. I didn't realize what was happening until the shrill screams of dying inmates reached my ears over the whirling of the helicopter's blades. _They were killing the inmates._

Sheer panic hit me. I stared at the dead bodies lying on the ground, blood still oozing out of their fresh wounds. It was a horrible sight, but like a car crash, I couldn't tear my eyes away.

A voice that sounded slightly muffled reached my ears, "Violet!" I continued staring over at the mess on the ground. Now that I was really looking, I realized that they weren't the only bodies littering the surrounding area. It looked like a warzone out here. My mouth opened in a silent scream, but no sound came out. Off in the distance I could hear another explosion go off.

Still trying to get my attention, Black Mask gripped my chin and forced me to look away from the carnage not even twenty feet away. "Violet! Stay with me here." The weird thing was, I _was _with him, but at that moment the only thing I wanted to do was sleep.

An odd feeling came over me after that. It was like my mind was being sucked into a vortex. Everything started going black. The last thing I heard before blacking out was his panicked voice saying, "No! No, no, no, don't go to sleep. Don't you _dare _die on me!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

There was a rock digging into my back and a hammer banging against my head. I slowly regained consciousness. Not knowing for sure where I was or who was around, I decided the best thing to do was to not give away the fact that I was awake. I wasn't sure how long I was blacked out for or what had happened. The last thing I remembered was running through the steel mill and almost getting out before…. and that's when my memory gave out. I feel like something big had happened after that, but I couldn't remember what.

Without moving or opening my eyes, I tried to evaluate the extent of my injuries. There was definitely something going on with my left arm, but I couldn't figure out what. You know when you run into something and get a huge bruise that throbs for hours after it happens? It felt kind of like that. Deciding that I had waited long enough, I started moving. I used my right arm to prop myself up into a sitting position.

When I was finally sitting upright, I was overcome with the utter feeling of lightheadedness. My vision blurred for a moment and I was afraid I was going to pass out, but after a few seconds, it returned to normal. All that was left was the lingering throb of that hammer pounding against the inside of my skull.

Disregarding my headache for a moment, I moved onto examining the rest of my body and my immediate surroundings. It seemed that the rock digging into my back was simply the lumpy couch I had been laying on. Speaking of the couch, it looked like it had seen better days. There was an equally dingy blanket that was now pooling around my waist; it had obviously been draped over me while I was passed out. The good news was, I was still dressed, minus my leather jacket. I double-checked to make sure nothing else funny was going on with my body before moving on. _You can never be too sure in this place._

That just left my throbbing arm. My neck was so stiff from the damn couch that it hurt to even attempt to turn it to the side. Through my stiff muscles, I glanced down and saw that my upper arm had been generously wrapped in sterile looking bandages. I also noticed that the left side of my once white tank top now had blood smeared on it. A million different thoughts went through my mind at once. Had I impaled myself on a piece of glass? Had an inmate stabbed me? Had something else happened much worse? At some point I had started hyperventilating almost hysterically. Through my fit of insanity, I registered a door opening somewhere behind the couch and hurried footsteps approaching the couch.

A warm hand tentatively touched my shoulder from somewhere behind me. The sudden contact caused me to jerk backwards. I immediately regretted the sudden movement. Pain flared in my arm and head, blinding me for a second. I screeched out a little, but bit my lip to prevent myself from making any other noise.

"It's alright. You're safe now." A rough, but soothing voice came from the man behind me. I didn't turn to look around, fearing the onslaught of even more pain, so I remained looking forward. I focused my attention on a scummy gray wall that looked like it had been scorched by a fire. While staring at the wall, the throbbing from my head and arm slowly began to recede.

I felt the couch shift behind me, which meant I wasn't alone on the couch anymore. A coarse hand touched my shoulder again, but this time with less force. Luckily I was prepared for something like this to happen and didn't have a seizure this time. I was still panicking inside.

"Violet. You need to calm down. Nothing's going to happen to you." The man spoke again. I _knew _that voice. Things were starting to come back to me now. I remembered almost reaching the door that led out of the steel mill before….before what?

Strangely, the warm hand wasn't so scary anymore. If I knew its owner, then what did I have to fear? Plus the warmth emanating from it was comforting in the cold room we were in. I balled the ratty blanket into a ball in my fist and tried bringing it closer to my chest. I was so cold. _What had happened in the steel mill?_

As I was still trying to figure out what exactly had happened to me, I felt the soft movement of a thumb gently rubbing over the skin near the back of my neck. _I was _almost _out of that place, but something stopped me! _There was a vague memory of hearing a manic chuckle coming from a darkened room. I could visualize seeing someone in a room, but couldn't remember what they were doing or who they even were for that matter. The next thing I remembered was turning to leave, but not making it to the door. The person, a man, had found me and…..I didn't realize until the last minute that he had a gun and then _BAM!_

"I WAS SHOT!" I screamed in exasperation. I looked back down at the bandages hugging my arm. _But how did I get here then?_ I was laying in the steel mill, bleeding out and…..someone found me. _Black Mask._ My memory seemed to want to cooperate again because I could suddenly remember everything after that. I remembered him carrying me across the streets outside of the steel mill, talking to him,…trying to pull off his mask, then seeing dead bodies littering the streets. Was I really safe in here? 

As gently and as slowly as I could, I eased my body around to face the man seated behind me. I sat so I was sitting face to face with him, staring up into his masked face. His eyes were as unnerving as ever, but they looked tired. "You saved my life," My voice sounded much weaker than it did when I had my outburst not even a minute ago, "again." I didn't know what else to say to this man, a man who had been uncharacteristically nice to me this entire night. Mind you, I use the term nice _very_ loosely.

He finally spoke up, "Well, when I found you in the steel mill, you just looked too pathetic to pass up, bleeding out on that grimy floor and all."_Yeah, scratch my previous comment about him being nice_. He continued staring at me after saying this. It was weird, but it didn't feel uncomfortable. His eyes seemed so inviting, but I knew danger lurked just under the surface of his calm exterior.

I decided not to acknowledge his previous statement and said, "Thank you. You didn't have to save me, but you did. I owe you my life." I could tell he was uncomfortable with my thanking him. This was a man who, I'm guessing, was rarely ever thanked for anything. He glanced away for a moment. This left me with a view of the unmasked portion of his neck. The sight of it reminded me of my stupidity earlier in the night when I tried to pry his mask off. The outline was clear against his creamy skin. There was _definitely_ a human under that mask. I was sure of it.

Forcing myself to steer clear of anything involving personal issues, I took a more considerate route, "Where are we?" I glanced around the room once again. We were obviously in some sort of building, but where? I looked over the back of the couch and saw a glass wall. _We were in a factory. _More specifically we were in what looked like a break room or maybe a guard's station that was raised above the factory floor. Everything in the surrounding area was a drab shade of gray. This whole damn city is just down right depressing.

My attention was drawn back to Black Mask when he spoke up, "We're still in the Industrial District. I was planning on taking you to an actual surgeon farther in the city, but the birds starting shooting everything up and we were getting boxed in." He glanced out into the factory area before redirecting his attention back towards me. "I had an old…. acquaintance…in the area that owed me a favor. He's not a surgeon, but he's definitely handy with certain toxins and such. I figured he'd have something to clean you up with." He paused again, "But regardless, he was able to bandage your arm. You got lucky; the bullet only grazed your arm. No penetration."

"I feel like I'm going to pass out." I stated bluntly. My brain was whirling around in my skull. Quite frankly, I was speechless. This man, who was a well known criminal. No, scratch that, a well known, _feared_ criminal, even in this hell hole, had gone out of his way to find me help. He hadn't left me bleeding out in a back alley, which I'm sure Penguin, or just about anyone else in this place would've done. Hell, even a certain Bat would've probably assumed I was beyond help and would've left me lying there drowning in my own blood. Okay, maybe I was being a little dramatic, since my wound wasn't _that _serious, but still. I was shot! _Probably karma from earlier in the night when I offed that thug._

He was uncomfortable again. He was a tough man. My guess would be he never got much affection from anyone in his life, e_specially_ not in recent times. Before I could stop myself, I closed the small gap in between us and wrapped my arms around him in a gentle hug. I didn't' want to seem too forward. I closed my eyes, enjoying the momentary human contact. I could tell he had no clue how to respond to my hug.

Deciding that I had put him through enough awkwardness to last a lifetime, I was about to let him go, but was shocked when I felt him lean forward a bit and gently wrap his arms around me. Something, probably the awkward placement of his arms, led me to believe he wasn't too experienced in the hug-giving field. It definitely wasn't an award-winning hug, but it was a hug nonetheless. I'm not sure how long we had sat there like that, probably not even five seconds, but eventually we broke away. He unsteadily, almost to the point of staggering, stood from the couch. I watched as he placed one hand on his hip and ran the other over his face. _He was flustered. _I thought he was going to say something, but he just turned around and started walking towards the door. Before walking out however, he stopped, turned around, pointed, and said, "That _never_ happened." He turned around and slammed the door shut before trudging off somewhere into the depths of the building.

I was left sitting on that couch feeling like a loopy freak. I knew I had enjoyed that hug, but seriously. _It was just because I'm in a desperate situation and he was there. I would've hugged _anyone.There was _nothing _else going on. But one thing was for certain. He most definitely did not have to worry about me telling anyone about our little moment.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx

I wasn't one hundred percent sure how long it was that I sat on that couch, but eventually I heard footsteps coming back up the stairs. I glanced over as the door swung open. Black Mask had come back and was carrying something.

"Do you still feel lightheaded?" He asked, while walking over to my current position on the couch. Now that he mentioned it, I really didn't. I felt more tired than anything now.

"Not really." I kept the answer short. I was afraid I was going to make him mad. Or that he may be tiring of my presence. I just didn't want him leaving me. It was weird, but it felt like we had some sort of mutual relationship. I wouldn't exactly call it a friendship, but it was like an agreement. He was obviously looking out for me to a degree.

"Good. It's time we leave." He threw whatever he had been holding at me. It landed in a heap on the couch next to me. I realized it was a black winter coat. I looked up at him with an eyebrow raised questioningly.

"It's warmer than that flimsy thing you were wearing, plus it won't draw so much attention to the fact that you're a woman. We're walking out of here, but this is still Joker's territory. I don't have as much of a pull over here anymore since that clown bastard took my factory over." He spoke with venom in his voice. Was he talking about the steel mill? Something pulled at my memory for a second. Back when I first entered this place, while we were in the holding the cell, the guard referred to him as Sionis. _Sionis_? I knew that name. While I was lying on the ground in the steel mill I remembered seeing the name _Sionis Industries_ on a metal sign above the door.

I stood up, and once I gained enough balance, I put my new coat on. Black Mask was standing by the door watching me with an almost cautious air about him. I sincerely hoped things weren't going to be awkward now. I was just trying to be nice when I hugged him. I zipped the coat up all the way and flipped the fur-trimmed hood up, tucking my hair beneath it while I was at it. He nodded absentmindedly and turned to walk out the door. I followed obediently.

Not liking the silent treatment he was giving me, I decided to take it upon myself to strike up a conversation. "So, your name is Sionis right?"

He glanced back at me and sarcastically said, "Figured that out all on your own?" _So it was going to be like that._

"Yeah, I did. Worked up quite the headache exerting myself like that, I did." I bit back with just as much sarcasm. He came to a halt right in front of me. We were standing in the middle of the deserted factory floor when he turned around and stared me down.

"You don't know me. You never did and you never will. I'm not Sionis anymore, alright? Get that straight now." I should have seen this coming. I just _had_ to open my mouth.

I held up my hands and said, "I was just trying to make conversation. I figured since you knew my name and all, it would make sense for me to know the man that I'm trusting to get me out of here alive." I cocked my head to the side and tried to look as innocent as possible. I'm sure I failed miserably in that department.

"You don't _need_ to know who I am. I'm the Black Mask. That should be enough for you." He was getting progressively closer to my face as he spoke. I knew I was playing with fire, but I was too tempted to not continue.

"That makes no damn sense. You realize that right? You aren't _really_ Black Mask. That's just an alias you use." Judging by the darkening of his eyes, I had hit a nerve.

He shook his head as he looked down at me. He slowly moved forward to the point where our bodies were practically touching. His larger figure dwarfed my petite one. He leaned down so his face was right in mine and said, "You know what I did when I was around your age? Do you know _why_ I'm the Black Mask?" I shook my head. I had no idea. "I killed my parents. They were greedy bastards anyway. They didn't care about me at all. To them I was just some ghost that haunted their mansions' hallways. They didn't care about me. They just cared about their social status. They tried to come off as wonderful people. But I knew who they _really _were. All they did was bitch about how pathetic the other "upstanding citizens" were in this city. Being rich and successful was never enough for them. I got fed up with it all. I was obviously a disappointment and would never amount to anything in their eyes. So one night while they were sleeping, I locked them in the house and lit it up." The way he spoke about this event led me to believe he got some thrill out of reliving the experience. This was the first real indication the entire night that I was dealing with a mentally unstable man.

But he wasn't done. Now smiling he continued, "Well I had the last laugh! I got their fortune and more importantly inherited the company. It's too bad I never cared much for business dealings. The business crashed and burned. But I was at least left with the steel mill. That's where I was when the walls of this "city" went up. I was hauled up in the factory when I came across a beneficial partnership with a firebug that led to my initial escape of this place. Imagine my surprise when I got thrown back in here tonight and found my factory inhabited by that dying asshole clown and his whore of a girlfriend." He was breathing heavily from his rant, his hot breath hitting my face. I was frozen in place.

Immediately after he told me all of this, I felt horrible. I didn't know why he felt the need to just snap at me like that, but I couldn't help but think that I had done something to set him off. He backed off a bit once he started cooling off. But he wasn't finished, "My "mask" that you see here," he stopped and motioned to his head, "part of my father's coffin. The day I put the mask on, Roman Sionis died forever. I was reborn as the Black Mask. So don't tell me I'm someone else. Don't you _dare_ psychoanalyze me like the damn shrinks back at the asylum did, thinking that they could change me. _Nothing_ will _ever _change me. Don't forget that." With that he turned around and continued walking towards the exit with a new determination to his stride.

I meekly followed a few feet behind, worried that he would start snapping again at any moment. I hadn't _meant_ to offend him. I really did feel bad about making him relive his past like that. Although it was a little scary, and I could definitely see now why he is deemed "insane" from his little tirade, I did learn a thing or two about the man behind that mask.

For one, his first name was Roman, not that I'd start referring to him as that, considering he views that half of himself as dead. For another, I now know, at least to a point, why he is the way he is. He really has never experienced the love and nurturing only a family could provide. I shivered at the thought of my parents treating me anything like that for even a moment. In a way, as horrible as this is, I kind of understood why he felt the need to kill his parents. He just snapped, kind of like a rabid animal feeling caged in.

I don't know why I was trying to justify his past crimes, but there were a few things I was sure of now. The man I was following, to my possible death mind you, was a cold hearted, murdering, psychopath who could snap at any moment. But regardless, this horrible man had shown me more compassion than I would've ever thought possible, especially after gaining some insight into his madness. There was _a lot _more going on with this guy than what he let on.  
>Psychopathic murderers don't usually go around giving out hugs.<p>

**A/N: *Hides face* I am SO sorry that it took me this long for an update. School has been relentless this year. I'm telling all of my readers now that I would **_**never**_** give up on this fanfic. It **_**will **_**be completed. I'm going to try very, very hard to get this done by the date that I originally started it. That being said, this story is getting close to ending, so the big question is, should I do a sequel? I have a few ideas in mind on how this one could end and how another one could go, but since there isn't going to be another game out anytime soon to go by, I'd have to wing it. That might mean changing up the story line in Arkham City a bit, especially the ending. But, if my readers want another story, I'd be happy to oblige. Let me know your thoughts on all of this! Also, expect another update fairly soon! **e Hehhhhhh


	14. Chapter 14

_A woman in a white lab coat sits behind her desk, shuffling through papers in a manila folder. A man and a woman, husband and wife, are sitting in front of the desk. The couple shift around occasionally in their seats, watching the woman sorting through paper after paper._

_ The woman has black hair that is tied into a tight bun on top of her head. She wears no jewelry and is dressed in a simple manner underneath her lab coat. Beneath her expensive glasses, she wears no eye make up. Finally, her blue eyes glance up at the couple seated in front of her._

_ Nothing is said between either party for a few moments. The atmosphere in the classy office is thick with apprehension. After what feels like a lifetime, the woman at the desk lifts up her glasses and rubs her eyes, sighing heavily while doing so._

_ "Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, I have to say, I'm actually amazed that it took this long for you to have your daughter examined." She makes eye contact with both of the Morgans for the slightest of seconds before looking back down at her folder. This was what the Morgans were afraid of hearing._

_ They didn't want some psychiatrist telling them that there was something wrong with their Violet. There was _nothing_ wrong with her. If it were up to them they wouldn't even be there. One of Violet's teachers had called them in and told them he thought Violet was suicidal. They had laughed in disbelief that the teacher could have ever have thought this. Violet had been through a lot in the past year, but she was a strong girl. No one could blame her for getting sad once in a while. _

_ A glance was exchanged between the parents as they waited for Dr. Owens, the woman behind the desk, to speak up again. Dr. Owens had examined Violet earlier in the day to "diagnose" what was wrong with her. The doctor at the hospital had referred them to the renowned clinic in eastern New York. In the Morgans' minds, it was a wasted trip. _

_ "Has your daughter expressed any feelings to you lately? Anything about the accident she and her sister were in?" Dr. Owens asked the Morgans. They tensed up immediately at the mention of the accident. They had agreed right after it had happened that it wouldn't be spoken of in their household. They didn't want Violet feeling at blame._

_ Clyde Morgan was the first to speak up, "Violet has never been one to talk openly about her feelings to anyone, let alone us." _

_ His wife, Elizabeth, chimed in, "We have a great relationship with Violet. That's not what the problem is; she's just not an emotional girl. That was her sister." She let it slip out before she could catch herself. _

_ This immediately brought that other issue to the forefront. Nodding slowly, Dr. Owens continued, "Violet spoke with me about Olivia and the accident. She feels at blame for what happened." The parents could tell she was editing out what she really had wanted to say, probably for their benefit. _

_ Elizabeth knew her husband didn't want to speak about Olivia, but they needed to. It had been months now since they buried their youngest daughter. "It's not Violet's fault at all. She's a very cautious driver for someone her age. It was just a tumultuous time for the family when the accident happened." She glanced over towards her husband whose jaw was set and his gaze was downcast. He _really_ didn't like talking about why it had been a "tumultuous time" for the family._

_ Dr. Owens took this as an invitation to speak more about their younger daughter. She chose to word her next sentence very carefully for fear of upsetting the two people seated in front of her. "Violet had told me that you had all gotten in an argument earlier in the day," she paused, watching as Clyde looked up, with a solemn look on his face, before continuing, "over Olivia's behavior." Both parents had a lead weight settled in the center of their chests._

_ Neither had thought that Violet would ever speak to anyone, let alone a doctor she didn't even know, about Olivia and her issues. The psychiatrist looked at both of them and said, "She told me that she felt afraid to talk to either of you about her sister."_

_ That hurt even worse. Elizabeth began crying at that. Clyde just got angry. "Violet knows she can talk to us at any time about Olivia. We wouldn't get mad at her. It's the other thing we don't want to talk about." _

_ Dr. Owens nodded slowly. Violet had told her all about this too. "I assume you're talking about Olivia and Jeremy when you say the "other thing"." She looked to both parents. Each had gone completely still. Elizabeth still had tears streaming down her face._

_ Clyde was the one to speak again, "Our Olivia was fourteen years old. That _pervert_ was 21 years old. The school hired him, put him in a classroom with young girls, without any doubts. He had sex with our little girl, and how did the school handle it?" He was hysterical. "They expel _our_ daughter and just lay off that bastard. They didn't even _fire _him! They didn't believe the _malicious lies_ coming from our daughter's mouth. They said that nothing had ever happened between the two. Do you know how this all came up? A teacher walked in on them in a closet. He was on top of our little girl." He was openly crying with his wife right now. "The teacher who found them reported them to the office immediately of course. We were called in, told what happened, and within days got our answer for justice. That _man_ got off free because his father was the superintendent of the school district. The teacher who had found them got fired, without any damn reason, and our daughter was expelled." He stopped. "Tell me how is that justice?"_

_ Dr. Owens was silent for a few moments. Having heard all of this from Violet, albeit in much calmer terms, she wasn't surprised. She knew she wouldn't know how to deal with something like that if it had happened to her child. _

_ "I'm very sorry that that happened to your daughter Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. I truly am. It must have adversely affected the entire family. I know that everyone has different ways of coping with tragedies such as that." She expressed her sympathies with the ailing parents. She needed to make her point that they should've been paying attention to their oldest daughter. They should've been paying attention to their oldest daughter long before that incident occurred._

_ When neither parent spoke up, too lost in their grief she suspected, she moved on to Violet. "I need to express my concern for Violet. Losing one's sibling, at any age, is a traumatic ordeal. But you must understand, teenagers are very susceptible to responding negatively to these types of situations. Sometimes they feel the need to, in a way, right a wrong. Sometimes this includes drastic circumstances." She let this hang in the air for a while._

_ "Our Violet isn't suicidal if that's what you're talking about." Elizabeth said in a watery voice. She was dabbing her eyes with a tissue._

_ The doctor shook her head at this accusation. "I wasn't talking about her being suicidal at all, although if untreated I believe that it could come to that." She looked at both parents, having their full attention after this point. "I believe your daughter is clinically depressed." Elizabeth drew in a deep breath. Her husband was staring unblinkingly at the woman behind the desk._

_ "Why would you say that? Did Violet tell you she was depressed after the accident?" Clyde asked, still not believing that something could be wrong with their daughter._

_ "No, not in so many words. I asked her about how she was feeling and she told me about her daily life. She said that she felt anxious about things that people normally wouldn't worry about, that she had a loss of interest in things she used to love, that she wasn't sleeping well, and that she felt like she was the sole cause of the accident." Dr. Owens explained with a clinical air to her voice. _

_ "Well, none of us have been up to par lately. I think that it's understandable what with everything everyone's gone through these last couple of months." Elizabeth cut in, seeing her husband becoming increasingly angry. She had to beg him to bring Violet here. He didn't believe in psychiatry or any sort of therapy. He was in denial with a lot of things lately._

_ "I would normally agree with you Mr. Morgan. However, I didn't ask her about how she was feeling just after the accident. I asked her how she was feeling _in general_. Once she explained this all, I asked how long this had been going on, expecting her to say a few months now. She told me this all started when she was eleven years old, except feeling at blame for the accident of course." She paused to look at both parents. "Quite frankly, I don't know how neither of you could've picked up on any of these signs for nearly six years?"_

_ Fearing what her husband would say to this, Elizabeth quickly spoke up, "Well, we did notice that her interests had changed a bit over the years. She stopped playing sports and didn't want to hang out with her friends as much, but we just took this as her adjusting to being a teenager. She always kept her grades exceptionally high, so we never saw a reason to be concerned."_

_ Dr. Owens didn't know what to make of these two people sitting in front of her. They loved their daughter very much, that was obvious, but they were oblivious. She saw this a lot with dealing with teenagers and children who came to her. These were _off-hand _parents. As long as their children came off as normal, healthy kids, they assumed they were perfect. That led to a lot of trouble down the road. The teenage years were a sensitive time in a person's life. _

_ "Well, that leads me to another topic I need to bring up." Dr. Owens continued, this time with a very serious air about her, "Judging from Violet's current ailments, and her rapid changing in interests and hobbies, I am inclined to believe she may also be suffering from dissociative identity disorder." Dr. Owens waited for a response._

_ "What does that even mean? What's a dissociative identity thing?" Clyde looked up from staring at the ground._

_ "It means, Mr. Morgan, that your daughter may be suffering slightly from multiple personalities." Judging by the man's paling face, he seemed to know what that was. The doctor continued, "Now, I don't believe that she has two people inside of her vouching for control of her body. I didn't even suspect her having this disorder at first. I thought maybe bipolar, but this makes more sense giving her extreme anxiety. She told me that sometimes she'll be feeling like a normal person and others she'll have this feeling come over her that makes her want to do things that she knows are wrong and she wouldn't normally do. She also has extreme panic attacks when she thinks about the accident and that night in the car."_

_ The doctor let this sink in with the parents for a while. They seemed speechless at this new information. "So, what, does she need medicated? Should we be worried that she's going to try to kill herself or what?" Clyde didn't understand how all of this could be going on inside of one teenager._

_ "Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that she's going to try to commit suicide or kill anyone. I'm trying to express the seriousness of this however. If she were put in another situation where she felt threatened or overwhelmed, she could potentially, for lack of better words, snap. Your daughter is level headed. There's no doubt about that. However, she's very fragile in terms of her current psyche. I need you two to understand that." This had quickly turned into something like a trip to the principle's office for the parents. "Having said that, I don't think she necessarily needs medicated, but I can't say anything for certain after just talking to her for an hour. I think she needs to come stay in a place like this, at least for a time period. Somewhere where she can get the help she needs before it's too late." Her eyes held sympathy for these people. _

_ No one spoke for a few minutes. Finally, Clyde stood up and put his coat on. Dr. Owens wasn't done speaking with them. "You said that you couldn't know anything for certain? So why are we still here? Seems like you're just blowing smoke out your ass with your psycho bullshit. Elizabeth come on we're leaving. There's _nothing_ wrong with Violet. She's a teenage girl. She's emotional. She exaggerates. That's it." He strode to the door, his wife sending an apologetic glance at the doctor. _

_ With her husband out the door already, Elizabeth turned to the doctor, who had walked around her desk to show her remaining guest out. "I'm sorry about him. He's very emotional with everything going on lately."_

_ Dr. Owens shook her head, "That's completely understandable."_

_ "But I want to thank you for meeting with us. I truly appreciate it and so does my husband." Elizabeth turned to walk out the door to find her husband, but felt a hand on her shoulder stopping her from going anywhere. She turned back around to meet the serious gaze of Dr. Owens._

_ "Please, Mrs. Morgan, your daughter needs help." She was almost pleading. _

_ Not knowing what to say, Elizabeth stood there until Dr. Owens released her shoulder and let her make her leave. She found her husband and daughter in the lobby waiting for her. Her husband was clearly angry, while poor Violet looked confused. Looking more closely at her sixteen year old, she wouldn't soon forget those haunting last words of Dr. Owens. _

_ Your daughter needs help. _

_Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX_

The streets were eerily silent. After all of the bombing from the last time I was out here, I didn't know what to expect. Other than dead bodies being around every corner, Arkham City didn't look too different. Black Mask, well Roman I guess, was ahead of me, clearing the way. And when I say clearing the way, I mean shooting or stabbing any stray inmates stupid enough to not let us pass by.

Let me tell you, after his previous little rant he went on, it was pretty damn scary seeing him with a machete-like knife in one hand and a gun in the other. He seemed to be letting off steam by the way he was killing these people. I guess as long as I wasn't on the receiving end of any of the killing, I should be happy. It's kind of sad that I didn't even flinch at this point when he shot some poor inmate in the head.

I didn't know how the Industrial District was mapped out, but judging from the path we were taking, it seemed like we were taking the long way around. I jogged a little closer to Roman since he was practically sprint walking through the streets and asked, "Where exactly is it that you're taking us?"

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye for a mere millisecond before continuing to scan the area. He was like a hawk in this aspect, daring anyone to come out of their hiding place so he can snatch them up like a helpless bunny. I thought he was kind of overreacting though considering the streets were, like I said, essentially deserted except for some stragglers here and there.

I was staring at the back of his head, waiting for an answer, when I tripped over something. Turns out that something was a dead body with its face covered by a burlap sack. I put my hands out to brace myself, but only ended up scraping them on a rusty crane that was sitting next to the bay. _I'll definitely need some tetanus shots after this night is through. _I hit the ground with a small, "Oof!"

At first I didn't think Roman was going to stop, but then he came to a halt and looked back with an annoyed expression on his face, "Oh for the love of…"

"Boss?" A deep voice came from the shadows of a building over towards my left. _Now what?_

Obviously Roman didn't trust this mystery person either because he swung his gun towards the voice. Nothing happened for a minute then, "Woah, woah, woah! It's him! I told you idiots!" It sounded like more than one person was in the shadows.

I looked over at Roman and saw him motion for me to get over to him. I stood up and sort of shuffled over to him. He pushed me behind him before yelling in that demonic raspy voice, "Who's there? I'll start shooting if you don't show yourselves." And I knew he was serious.

Three men came out of the shadows with their hands up. They looked like all of the other prisoners, in orange jumpsuits, but they had a black skull painted onto their chests. _Isn't that cute. He has a little fan club! _I kind of laughed under my breath before I could stop myself. I was hoping he hadn't heard, but judging by that seething look he threw back at me, he had_._

"Stay here." He growled at me under his breath before moving towards his apparent henchmen. They were all kind of glancing between the two of us. _Probably wondering what their boss was doing with a teenage girl. _I'd like to know too.

While they spoke in hushed voices, I was left standing by one of the rusty legs on the crane. Being the disobedient pet that I was, I decided to walk two feet away from my spot by the crane and over to the edge of the dock. I glanced down to the stormy looking water before hearing, "What did I say about staying where you were!" I whipped my head around and found myself being stared down by Black Mask.

I threw my hands up in mock surrender while he turned back around to talk to his groupies. _He acts like I haven't been running around this damn city by myself this entire night. I hardly think I'm going to die for moving five feet from where I'm standing? _I look around the area and notice that as far as I can tell we're alone.

Way to overreact, you psy-_what was that?_ I notice a door open inwards about ten feet away from me. It's on the side of a small tan building. I can't tell who opened the door; I can't even see inside the building because of the crappy lighting. I glance over towards Roman and see he's wildly gesturing with his gun and knife. Something's got him all worked up.

Seeing this as an opportunity, I take a few steps closer, trying to see who opened the mysterious door. As far as I can tell, it blew open from the wind. I'm about to turn back around when a man starts coming out of the shadows. I can't make too much out feature wise, but I can tell that he's naked from the waist up.

I squint a bit as he slowly emerges from the shadows more and more. He's almost under the crappy light hanging above the door, but not quite. I can tell he's wearing shorts too now. What is that around his neck? _Is that a padlock?_

He's smiling as he steps fully out of the building. I realize that I subconsciously took a few steps towards this strange man while trying to figure out whom he was. He's probably only eight feet from me now, a little close for comfort when I see him fully in the light. _Are those tally marks on his body?_ He's holding a huge knife. That's when he starts coming towards me.

I'm left standing there with my head cocked to the side watching this man come towards me. He has a grin on his face and a deranged look in his eyes. He's within five feet of me when he says, "I have the perfect spot for you!" His voice is a lot higher than I would've expected, but I don't have much time to ponder this.

One second I'm standing there staring into this guy's creepy eyes, and the next I'm being grabbed by the waist and thrown behind someone, not enough to fall on the ground, but with enough force to stumble a bit. I recognize the person who threw me around as Roman, and boy did he look _pissed._

I glimpsed back to where the goons were standing and saw that they were gone. I switched my attention back to the matter at hand and saw him standing in front of this shirtless guy, not moving, not saying anything. Actually, neither of them were doing anything. The crazy looking guy, sorry _the shirtless, crazy looking guy_, wasn't smiling anymore as he eyed up Roman.

Without saying anything, Roman backs up and grabs my wrist. He pulls me so I'm up right against him, points his gun at this lunatic, and says, "No." That's all he says. He starts dragging me away from the guy and continuing our route around the Industrial District. He keeps glancing backwards occasionally; probably to make sure we aren't being followed.

"Who was that guy? And what exactly did he mean when he said he had a spot for me?" I asked when we were an appropriate distance from him.

Roman was quiet and then, "It means I'm going to put this gun up his ass and pull the trigger that's what it means." We come to a stop and he pushes me, not exactly roughly, up against the side of a building. I'm about to ask what he's doing when he says, "Do you _want _to die?" He looks me dead in the eye, "Because if you do, I will put you out of your misery right now." He brings the gun up, almost as emphasis.

_Where was this coming from?_ I shake my head, keeping my eyes on the gun the entire time. I thought we had come to some sort of understanding? I guess that's what happens when you deal with crazies.

He lowered the gun and said, "I thought not. So next time, _listen_ when I tell you to do something!" He practically yells in my face. He has a crazed look in his eyes that I'm not used to. _This guy better not have just snapped._

"What's your problem? Did I do something wrong?" I'm completely clueless as to how I'm to blame right now.

"What's my problem?" He does some crazy little laugh, "_What's _my _problem? _Do you have _any_ idea how close you just came to dying?" He was getting in my face. I hope he wasn't going to start making a habit of that.

I'm stunned into silence for a moment. "I'm sorry." I apologize. I'm not really sure what for, but I feel the need to. I don't like him being mad at me.

I think he was going to say something else but he's interrupted when a muffled explosion sounds from above us. We look up and see a window blown out from the top of the tower. Not only that, but two dark shapes are now falling through the sky. One of the shapes was definitely batman, but I didn't recognize the other. This seemed to have put Roman on edge however, because he grabbed my shoulder and started dragging me through the streets again.

This time I didn't even bother asking what we'd just witnessed. My brain was in overload as it was. "I don't know how those idiots managed to survive here all this time." He started. I was going to ask who, but I realized he was talking about his goons. "They told me something useful though. It seems like Joker's men were heading into the sewers for something big. They said Joker went to the old theater. Apparently he has something big planned for Batman." He smirked as he said this. My guess would be he was hoping one of them would kill the other, or if we were really lucky they would both die.

"You said they were going to the sewers? Isn't that where we're going too?" We had just walked in between two concrete buildings up against the wall around the still smoking tower. On the ground at the end of the alley was a manhole.

He handed me the gun and said, "Cover me," before obnoxiously laughing at his 'joke'. _Yeah, I'll cover you…in bullet holes. _He bent down and uncovered the manhole, before taking his gun back and saying, "Ladies first."

I leant over the hole and glanced down into the darkness. "What if there are people down there? Maybe you should go first?" I really didn't want to be blindly climbing down there.

"Oh, you don't want to get yourself into a dangerous situation? I'm sorry, I thought you were all about doing stupid stuff tonight?" He gave me a pointed look, so I gave him the finger and started climbing down the ladder. Once again, it smelled terrible down here. Luckily, I seemed to be alone at the moment.

I turned around to see where Roman was and about peed myself when I saw him standing right behind me. "Let's go, princess." He started walking away, so I just did what I always do and followed him. We walked, and we walked, and we walked some more. I hope he knows where he's going because it looks like we've been walking in circles to me.

"So what happens if we run into anything down here? Last time I was here Joker's people were everywhere." I asked uneasily. I don't think a gunfight would go too well in an enclosed space like this.

"If we run into anything that's alive, we kill it. Simple as that." He stopped for a second then almost like an afterthought asked, "And when the _hell_ were you down here?" I almost laughed in his face at his tone of voice. If only he knew what I've been up to all night.

I opened my mouth to answer, but didn't have a chance as gunshots rang out. Roman pushed me down to the ground, throwing himself on top of me. He wasn't big, but boy was he heavy. Not to mention I was lying in who knows what.

"Stay down!" He growled into my ear with urgency. I nodded, not even knowing if he was paying attention or not. He quickly got up and started firing off shots towards the general area the voices were coming from. Judging from the scream, I'd say he just shot someone.

Whoever he shot was still crying while two other guys came around the corner that we just came around. _We were being followed and hadn't even noticed_. They pulled their guns towards Roman and for a moment sheer panic overcame my body. It was like my insides had turned to ice. _He can't die!_

Before they had a chance to do anything, Roman shot the front guy in the kneecap, which caused him to fall backwards into the second idiot. They both fell into the putrid looking water running between the walkways. I watched from my spot on the ground as the already murky water turned a maroon color from the blood. I was being pulled up by the hood of my jacket and spun around. I came face to face with a frazzled looking Roman. "Listen to me, keep going straight ahead. Don't make any turn offs, just go straight, It'll come to an end and there'll be a ladder that will take you up not far from the museum." The two men resurfaced, with the bleeding one screaming out in pain.

Roman and I both looked out towards the two of them. They didn't have their guns anymore, but that's not what I was concerned about at the moment. I shook Roman's shoulder, trying to get his attention, "Roman…" His head snapped around as soon as that one word left my mouth, a serious expression on his face, before following my outstretched arm. _There was something in the water._

A giant ripple was going straight towards the two goons in the water. I wasn't even given an answer before I was being shoved away, away from the entire scene. "Go! I'll meet you at the museum. Don't stop and don't turn around!" One final shove and I took off. I was sprinting as fast as I could. If I tried to stop I'd probably end up in the water with them.

I hadn't even been running for ten seconds when I heard the roar of what could only be a beast. It echoed all around the small sewer system. It seemed like this made me run even faster, or maybe that was the adrenaline kicking in. _I hope he knows what he's doing!_ I was actually scared. Not for myself, but for Roman. I didn't want him to die. It felt wrong leaving him back there, but I knew if I were with him and he had to make a run for it, I'd just hold him back.

Finally, I saw a ladder come into my sight. I kept full out sprinting all the way up to the ladder. Once my hands were on the ladder, I gazed back into the darkness that I'd just come out of. _If he's dead, it's because of me._

With that thought in mind, I began my ascent to, what I hoped, would be a safe zone.

**A/N: Alrighty! Fast update right? Well, I've mapped out the rest of the story and it comes to about 20 chapters. I'm going to leave the end open so that if I _do_ decide to do a sequel, I'll have a place to start. But I still want everyone's opinion on whether or not I should do a sequel. Thanks!**


	15. Chapter 15

As carefully as I could, I lifted the cover off of the manhole and slowly climbed out of the dank sewers. I was in another alley. I gave the dark hole I'd just came from one last glance, hoping that Roman wasn't dead, before making my way towards the end of the alleyway's opening. Leaning out from behind a building, I saw that I was indeed back in semi-familiar territory. It seemed like I was on the ground level of the streets. I saw a small awning underneath a large glass covering that displayed: SUBWAY ENTRANCE. _Definitely not going down that way._

I looked up and could see large buildings on the streets above me. One thing I noticed that was missing however, were the Penguin thugs. The streets looked seemingly deserted. From where I stood I couldn't tell if this was because they were hiding from the bombings or if they were all dead. Figuring it was time to try to figure out where the museum was, I found a staircase and began climbing up to higher ground. I came up on a ledge directly across from the museum. All I had to do was figure out a way to get over there and I'd be good. I continued following the streets and ended up working my way over a staircase that led to the front of the museum.

_Now's my chance; once I'm in the museum I'll be safe._ I made it all the way up the stairs before stopping in my tracks. There were four thugs lounging on the steps in front of the museum. I couldn't just stroll over to them since I didn't have my Penguin-certified armband anymore. Black Mask must've taken it off of me when I got shot. I crouched behind a garbage bin and tried to figure out the best course of action.

Glancing to my left I noticed an alleyway that looked like it went back behind the museum. _Maybe I can sneak around to the other entrance I went through the first time. _Considering my options, fighting off thugs or trying another entrance, I think trying the other entrance was probably my best bet. I leant out one last time, checking to see if any of the thugs were looking. They were just sitting around talking as far as I could tell. I was about to take off when something caught my eye and made me hesitate.

At first, I hadn't really looked too closely at the thugs; I just assumed they were more of Penguin's lackeys. But now I was _really _looking at them. They were definitely Penguin's guys, all of their shirts and jackets had the penguin insignia on them, but that's not what was confusing me. They were wearing masks over their faces that were vertically divided into two-tones. _Two-Face masks. _

Whatever this was, it couldn't be good. Either these were Two-Face guys who were recruited by Penguin or they were Penguin's guys who converted to Two-Face's ranks. My guess would be the latter considering they were wearing masks still. _Judging by my track record tonight, there's bound to be some sort of surprise for me inside. _Without mulling over it too much, I took off at a full on sprint into the alleyway. I couldn't hear any raised voices behind me so I assumed I wasn't being followed.

There's no way that Penguin would give up his museum, especially to Two-Face. That either meant he was still in the museum hauled up somewhere or he was dead. Somehow I didn't think he was dead, but who knows.

I kept running down the alleyway, turning to the right to try to cut over to the other side. I came to the end and stopped at a fence. Peering through it, I could clearly see the entrance I had been forcefully brought through hours earlier. As far as I could tell the coast was clear, but that could change at any second. I quickly scaled the fence and sloppily landed on the grimy concrete on the other side.

I approached the large wooden doors underneath the worn out _Iceberg Lounge _sign. I didn't know whether I should knock or just walk right in. _On the bright side, if I knock and some "enemy" answers, I'd have a chance to run for it rather than just walking into a trap._ Well, here goes nothing.

My pale fist raised and was contrasted greatly against the dark wood of the door. I paused for a second, staring at my pale hand. It looked almost foreign to me. I didn't even want to think about what the rest of me looked like at this point. Shaking my head, I knocked firmly on the door. After a few seconds, I thought about just trying to go in after all, but I heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door.

"I'm not telling ya again, get the hell out of here!" A booming voice came from the other side of the door a moment before a piece of the door slid open a few inches above the top of my head. I found myself looking into the blue eyes of a stranger. They were lit with fire the second the wood slid open, but quickly softened when they spotted me. "Oh geeze, what're you doing here kid?"

I didn't have a chance to answer before the eyehole closed again and he swung the heavy door open. "Quick, get in here!" He gestured with his hand, without letting go of the door. Judging from his tone of voice, he didn't sound like someone I should be weary of. He didn't have that crazed look in his eyes like everyone else in this place did.

Stepping into the now brightly lit hallway, I could immediately tell something big had happened. Penguin's office was still the same more or less, except there were two men standing in it talking on the radio in hushed voices. The man behind me was busy bolting the door shut once again, so when he turned and laid a hand on my shoulder, I jumped.

"Woah, it's okay. No one's going to hurt you here. You're safe." He withdrew his hand and tried to soothe me. I was seriously confused at this point. _This guy definitely isn't with Penguin._

I must have looked as confused as I felt because the man motioned for me to follow him into the main room. "I'm with the GCPD. Everyone in here is. We managed to take this part of the museum back from Penguin and his crew. We locked it down, no one in, no one out." _Well that's a little hypocritical; given the fact that you just let me in here don't you think?_ I kept that little tidbit to myself, no need to give him any reason to suspect me of any funny business.

We walked out to where the giant iceberg was the last time, but there was no iceberg in sight. It looked like the floor had given out and had been patched over. I also saw more of the cops scattered throughout the room. They all gazed at us when we entered the room. I had a sudden feeling come over me. _I shouldn't be here. They're going to know._

"My name's Officer Denning." I simply looked at the man, taking in his appearance. He wasn't a particularly tall guy, but he was pretty muscular. He was dirty, there looked to be a layer of grime on him, just as there is on everything in this city, from his clothes to his bald head. My eyes fell finally to his attire. He had on the standard orange prison jumpsuit pants, but was wearing a greenish tinted white tank top. Blazed boldly against the dirty tank were the words, DEAD COP.

We stopped on the outskirts of the room. He turned to me and asked, "You aren't hurt or anything are ya?" He sounded concerned enough, though more than anything he just sounded tired. I was having that feeling again. I shook my head, letting him know I was alright. Technically I was alright, Roman had done a good job patching up my 'scratch'. Plus I didn't want any cops eyeing me up too closely.

"Can I ask you a few questions then? Just as a precaution." _He doesn't trust me._ I felt myself nod numbly. My mind was going a hundred miles an hour, assessing the situation. "How did you get in here?" _How do I answer that? Should I tell him the truth?_ In the end, my subconscious won: _lie._

"I was at the press conference that Bruce Wayne was speaking at when Tyger guards swarmed the area. In the confusion I was thrown in here along with some other reporters." The words poured out of my mouth without any hesitation or trace of lie. I didn't even know where that had come from honestly.

He seemed to buy it though, nodding he said, "You're lucky you made it this far without getting seriously injured. The scum out there are ruthless." The way he talked about the prisoners ignited something in me. I thought immediately of the guards who were supposed to be rightfully enforcing the laws in this place; the guards who had _shot_ at me. Then, I thought of the prisoners, Roman and Penguin, who, in their own strange ways, helped me more than any cops or guards ever would.

"Well kid, best thing to do now is just sit tight. The police are sending in a unit in the morning to come get us. You'll be released as well." Officer Denning explained then wandered off to talk to the men in the center of the room. They had been eyeing us up since the moment we walked in. One of them was holding one of Penguin's umbrellas he had scattered around this place. _He'd better be careful with that._

I watched as they started talking in hushed voices, occasionally throwing glances my way. _Maybe he didn't believe me. What if these guys aren't even GCPD? I don't know them._ He hadn't said I couldn't walk around the room, so I took it upon myself to work my way up to the upper levels where Penguin's secret room was. I glanced over the railing while making my way up the ramp and noticed the policemen were keeping their eyes on me.

There were at least two more cops on the upper level. They were all gathered around one door that was excessively barricaded. I slowly approached them, wondering what was up with the barricade, when Officer Denning appeared behind me. "Two-Face busted into the museum an hour or so ago. Started shooting the place up with his lackeys." That would explain the thugs I saw outside.

"Where's Penguin and his men then?" I asked it before I could stop myself. I hoped it sounded innocent enough.

Denning replied, "Dead. At least, that's what we're assuming. We heard a lot of commotion on the other side when they first came in, but that all died down a little bit ago." _Dead. I find that hard to believe. _"If you ask me, they got what they deserve. Swine like Cobblepot don't deserve to live." He moved over to talk to some of the other cops huddled around the door, looking more scared than tough with their high-powered guns.

_Safe. _That's what Officer Denning had said, that I was safe. I moved carefully along the upper perimeter of the walkway, not having had a chance to explore the last time I was up there. As I ran my hand against the chipping paint in the dim upper hallways, I couldn't help but question just how "safe" I actually was. I glanced back and looked at the two cops standing by the door, Denning had disappeared; they were eyeing me with distrust.

I didn't know what prompted me to think it, but I had a sudden thought that I needed to get out of there, and get out of there fast. I knew if I walked out of here with these cops, I'd be thrown right back into this place or an actual jail. At this point, as sad as it was, I think I'm better off in this place than anywhere else. _These cops won't want to help me so much once they figure out I lied and am actually a prisoner._

My hand was still trailing over the wall when I felt a small crack that didn't feel like a piece of chipped paint. I hesitated for a second and glanced over towards the wall. Without realizing it, I had ended up back at the entrance to the secret room Penguin had brought me to before. A banging echoed through the room at that moment. My head snapped over towards the hallway the cops were standing in front off.

"Hey! Everything all right up there?" A strained voice called up from the floor below. It wasn't Denning's voice, so that left one of the other guys. _How many cops were in here anyway?_

One of the men from the floor I was on responded, "Yeah! Just some stranglers trying to mess with our minds." He paused and I heard what sounded like a fist bang off the door, "Well it ain't working!"

The banging persisted and I could tell the cops were on edge. The two up here had disappeared into the hallway out of my view. _Now's your chance. Get in that room and figure it out from there. Just get _away_ from these pigs!_ I didn't think; I just acted. I picked up a piece of a broken railing and jumped up, hitting the almost invisible button on the ceiling. Soundlessly, the hidden door slid open. Without a moment's hesitation, I entered the room and slid the wall shut behind me.

But why exactly did I just do that? Now that I was in the dark room, with just me, myself, and I, I realized my heart wasn't the only thing pounding. I had what felt like the beginning of a migraine. What the heck had possessed me to do that? I could just go right back out of the room and act like I had just stumbled upon it by chance if I really wanted to. I felt like there was a force keeping me from moving, preventing me from leaving the room. I knew this force didn't exist; the only thing stopping me was myself.

I shook my head, absolute in my resolve. I wasn't going back out there. I was going out into the museum. Roman had said to meet him at the museum. Somehow I didn't think me being hauled up in a room with a dozen cops would go over too well with him. Besides, he said it would be safe here. Obviously he had faith in Penguin being alive. Judging from what I'd seen from that man, Penguin had a lot of power. He wasn't someone who would just lie down and get killed. He'd go out with a fight. Since this building was still standing, I figured he's still in it somewhere.

Exhaling a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, I started moving around the room that was vaguely lit by sleeping computer monitors. I was afraid that if I turned on the lights, the cops would see it from outside the door. From the last time I was in here, I knew there were no other doors in or out of the room. At least none that were visible. I quickly did a run along the wall, seeing if there were any other secrets in this room, but that didn't turn up anything useful. I sat down, wondering if I had made a mistake. _This whole night was a mistake. _

Speaking of which, what the hell time was it? It _had_ to be close to dawn. I felt like I'd been running around this place for days. My legs seemed to be giving up on me; I hadn't got this much exercise in years. I pulled myself up and went over to the wall of sleeping surveillance cameras. There had to be a time stamp on them or something. Once I pressed the monitor button, the image that popped up wasn't quite what I was expecting. I leaned forward, squinting at the screen.

The room on the screen was dark. From what I could see however, there seemed to be some sort of table in the middle with a light hanging over it. On the table was a man, no, a prisoner, judging by his orange prison jumpsuit. _What is this? It didn't look like anywhere in the museum._

His arms and legs were strapped to the table. He didn't seem like he was fighting however, in fact, he almost seemed like he was asleep. If his eyes weren't open, I wouldn't have doubted it. Just as I was wondering what the heck was going on, a man approached the table from out of the shadows. Wearing the same white lab coat he had worn hours earlier, the bald man with the round glasses stepped closer to the table. _The infamous Dr. Strange. _

He leant over the patient and said something, but the camera didn't seem to pick up on sound or perhaps he said it too softly. Strange began walking around the table the patient was strapped to, but I couldn't' tell what he was looking for. That's when I saw he was holding some sort of instrument. I leant closer to the screen. It looked like. . . a pick or something. It was a long metal pole with a hook at the end.

He took the instrument and before I could look away from the screen, he shoved it up the patient's nose. I could tell from the jerking motion the patient was making that he was fully awake. I wanted to look away but I was frozen in a state of horror. It looked like he was fishing something out of the guy's nose now. What was that? Realization dawned on me immediately. _He really was lobotomizing patients! _Feeling like I was going to puke if I kept watching, I punched the button on the monitor and the screen went black again.

I sat still in the now black room again. How did a man like Strange get put in charge of this place? Somebody had to know what he was doing. _Somebody _had to realize that patients were being experimented on like lab rats. If he really could get away with building this huge prison and doing what he was to the patients in here, Gotham was in serious trouble.

There was a commotion from the other side of the hidden door, which managed to stop me from having an anxiety attack. I can't give up now, I've come way too far. Judging by the raised voices, I'd say they just realized I was gone from out there. I was still seated in the chair, facing the wall where I knew the secret door was, when I felt a cold wisp of air hit the left side of my body. I looked to the left and noticed a large vent on the ground that I hadn't realized was there. _There's my ticket out of here!_

As quickly as I could, I scoured the room for a tool or something that I had used earlier while fixing the communications jammer that would get that vent off the wall. Luckily, I found a screwdriver and got to work on unscrewing the vent. I could hear footsteps outside of the door now, but they passed. _I could just stay in here, but where would the fun be in that?_

Finally, the last screw fell to the ground and the vent came off the wall. Crawling inside, I had to fight the urge to sneeze. It was seriously dusty in here. I just had to get far away from this area of the museum and I would be good to go. There were a lot of turn offs, but I decided to keep going straight forward. I had been crawling for a few minutes when I came to a part of the venting system that I could see out of the slots on the bottom of the ventilation system. It looked like a body of water was about twenty feet down from where I was. I needed to make sure I didn't fall through any of these. That would not be fun, especially since I knew Penguin kept something down there.

Just when I thought I had come to the end of that room, I heard voices coming from below me. I crawled forward a little bit towards the next vent on the bottom and glanced through. There were three guys down below that were dressed in Two-Face outfits. There was also one guy in Penguin garb. I could guess what was going to happen to him.

"Just come work for Two-Face. He's going to be in charge of this prison soon enough. Besides, he isn't so bad. Just don't get on his bad side. Haha get it?" One of the Two-Face men was talking. He seemed like the leader of the little group.

"There's no way I'm joining up with him. The guy's a loon. At least you knew when Penguin was going to snap. Besides, Penguin isn't gonna just sit back and let you all take the museum. He's planning something big." This was the Penguin guy talking. It seems like he still thought Penguin was alive at least.

"Awe, come on Wes. Penguin doesn't have a shot in hell of taking this museum back. You know it too! Don't be stupid man." Another of the Two-Face guys was talking. I looked closer and realized he was one of the Two-Face/Penguin guys. Looks like someone opted to join Two-Face's ranks.

"I'm no traitor Paul, not like you. When Penguin finds you, he'll kill you. He'll kill all of you, including your boss." I'll give it to the Penguin guy, he was loyal.

"Alright we tried. I say we just get rid of him now. He's not going to change his mind." The third one finally spoke.

They all seemed to be in agreement because the one in the middle then stepped forward and shot him in the chest before pushing him into the water. I leaned down closer to the vent to see where the poor guy went. I could see him treading water, then all of the sudden a giant shark came out of nowhere and drug him under. All that was left of the guy was some foamy water and blood.

"It's a shame he just didn't join us." One of the men muttered, but at that point I was already moving again. I couldn't get caught. I didn't think they'd offer me a position on Two-Face's team for one. I just didn't want to think what would happen to me before they had a chance to toss me in the tank. I stopped. One of those guys had a gun, but only _one _of them. I didn't know how many other Two-

Face thugs were in front of me, so a gun could really help my chances of surviving in this place. But how would I get it? I kept crawling forward in the vent until I came to a part that branched off to the left. I took this path and ended up coming to a vent that opened into a room. This one I managed to swing open as quietly as I could from the inside. I crawled out and surveyed the room before I went anywhere else.

"So where do you think Penguin is anyway?" One of the men was asking. Their voice floated through a doorway at the end of the room. I pressed myself up against a wall so I was out of sight, but could still hear what was going on. I peeked around the corner and saw two of the three guys standing in front of the door.

Now it was time to act. I was looking around the room for something to use as a weapon. I'd need to attack the guy with the gun first. What to use? There was a desk with some cluttered papers on it across from where I was hiding, but I was afraid they'd see me if I went over to it. There might be scissors or something in it though. As I was leaning forward my leg bumped into something. I looked down and wouldn't you know it, there was a fire extinguisher sitting on the ground. _That might work._

Since I wasn't exactly strong, I couldn't expect to pick it up and hit someone over the head with it, but I bet I _could_ set it off and make a hell of a distraction if I timed it right. I leant down and carefully picked it up. Leaning around the corner again, I could see the two guys still standing there, but the third was now standing there with his back to the doorway, looking over the railing into the water. The one on the left was holding the gun. _Perfect._

I moved like a ninja, _for once_, and got to the doorway. I paused for a split second; close enough to touch the two men standing in front of me. Then, all at once I set off the fire extinguisher, aiming in the middle at the one leaning against the railing. They all shouted in surprise. The one who had been leaning against the railing had jumped forward in surprise and fell over the railing into the water below. _Well that's one less person to deal with._

I spun and sprayed the guy on the left now. Once he was spluttering around on the ground and coughing, I launched the fire extinguisher as hard as I could at the man behind me. A tremor of pain shot into my wound, but I chose to ignore it at the moment. I quickly leapt on the guy on the ground, sent a punch at his face, which caused his nose to bleed, and then grabbed the gun. It wasn't a handgun like I had before, but the safety was off, so I decided to just pull the trigger anyway. I shot him twice in the chest, surprising myself from the jerk the gun sent back. I didn't waste time mulling over the fact that I had just murdered a man; I still had another behind me. I spun around to look for him, but he caught me off guard and tackled me to the ground.

We landed fairly close to the edge of the metal platform, almost over the water. "You little bitch! You're going to regret doing that!" The last man was the one wearing the Penguin/Two-Face hybrid outfit. If anyone should have regrets, it should be him.

He had my wrist in a vice grip, trying to get me to release the gun. I kicked my knee up with as much force as I could and kneed him in the groin. He groaned in pain and rolled off of me. That gave me enough time to gain my bearings and get a grip on the gun again. I spun up to my knees and looked him straight in the eyes. I saw something there that fueled my need to kill even more; I saw fear. At that moment I felt very powerful indeed.

I looked him straight in the eyes and said, "I don't regret anything." It only took one bullet to the head to end him. I lowered the gun and stayed on my knees for a moment, looking around me.

The large room was cold from the, no doubt, chilly water that was below us. On the metal platform I was on, there was a dead body in front of me, one behind me, and one below me. He was probably shark food by now_._ The foam from the fire extinguisher was splayed all across the platform. I had gotten some on my back and my pants while I was rolling around on the ground.

As I watched the blood slowly oozing down the fallen thug's face, I could only think of one thing, _it was time to find Penguin._


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything.

My heart was thrumming in my chest like a drum. I walk holding the gun tightly in my sweaty palms, making my way across the museum. I was busy navigating through the hallways, away from the grisly scene I had left in the shark room. I needed to stay a few steps ahead of any Two-Face men who may have heard the commotion and stumbled across the bodies of their comrades.

Eventually I came across a massive room that looked like some pseudo-gladiator pit. As with every creepy room in this prison, this one was littered with blood and skeletons from past fighters. I glanced over the barbed wire platform I was on and noticed at least twenty men laying unconscious on the ground below. _At least they look unconscious._ I didn't need to get down there only to have two or three pop up and come at me.

I quickly decided to just risk that chance, and make a break for the doorway leading out of the room as quickly as I could. I turned to my left and started down the chained in staircase. _What were all of these guys doing laying unconscious on the floor anyway?_ At the bottom of the staircase there was a gate that I quickly unlatched and pushed open with the tip of my gun.

None of the men stirred in the least bit when the gate squeaked open. I figured I was good to go, but still stuck to the side of the room, up against the wall, and didn't even think about turning my back to any of them. I'd come too far tonight to make stupid mistakes now.

While making my way towards the door in a spastic sort of fast-walk, I noticed all of the men on the ground weren't Penguin's men, like I had originally assumed. They were Two-Face thugs. That meant that someone had come through here at some point after Two-Face had taken over the museum and had taken out a considerable number of thugs. Since none of them looked like they had any fatal wounds, I figured it couldn't have been cops. Cops would've either had shot them or arrested them on the spot. That meant it had to have been Batman or someone else who was experienced with taking on a large number of men at one time.

Well, either way, I hadn't passed anyone since my original encounter with the Two-Face guys, so I wasn't going to get too hung up on it. I had to focus on finding Penguin. I made it out of that room and took off down the hallway. I hadn't been in this part of the museum the last time I was here, so I could've been blindly walking into a trap for all I knew. Every hallway in this place had the same eerie feeling to it. Everything was dilapidated and I don't think I had seen one complete display case the entire time I was in here. They were all busted open with weird displays inside of them.

I rounded the second bend in the hallway and saw another door at the end of the hall. I slowly approached it. I leaned forward and put my ear to the cold wood. At first I didn't hear anything, but then I could just barely discern the muffled voices permeating the air on the other side. _Shit._ Well that put a kink in my plan. I looked down at the gun in my hands and clicked the safety off.

What would be the best way to go about doing this? The second I open this door, whoever's on the other side is guaranteed to hear and possibly see me. If they have a gun, that meant they could easily shoot me before I have a chance to even aim my gun. Plus I didn't even know if they were Penguin's or Two-Face's men. I don't think Penguin would appreciate me shooting his guys, or worse, him. Deciding I needed to go about this in a different way, I began looking around and trying to think of a way to get out of this. There was literally nothing that I could use as a distraction around here. I looked up at the back of the door and it was like a light bulb went off over my head. The hinges of the door were on this side. That meant the door opened into the room I was in. _Bingo!_

As hard as I could, I started banging the butt of the gun off the back of the door. When I heard the voices on the other side of the door stop and footsteps coming my way, I quickly backed up against the wall behind where the door would open, putting my finger on the trigger. The door swung open and before the thug, I made sure it wasn't Penguin, had a chance to do anything, I kicked the door as hard as I could, knocking him off balance and giving me a chance to see what he was wearing. _He's a Two-Face thug; I'm in the clear. _Taking aim, I released a string of shots off into the guy.

I turned towards the open door now and noticed another thug standing there in, what looked like, shock. I fought the urge to chuckle. I must've been quite the sight. Whatever he had thought about doing to me with that little knife he was holding in his right hand had been squashed when he saw the gun in my hands. He turned to run away, dropping the knife in the process, but you can't outrun a bullet. Well in his case, I guess it would be, you can't outrun _bullets._

Stepping over his bloody corpse, I continued through the dark hallway, ready to use the gun at a moment's notice. I didn't know how big this room was, if there were any thugs left, or how many if there were. I wasn't taking chances. My footsteps echoed through the large room. I had come out into what looked like the entrance hall to the museum. At the moment I was standing under a giant T-Rex's plastic ass. I looked around. There were broken glass cases, just the same as everywhere else in the museum. I lowered the gun when I was fairly certain no other thugs were going to come at me from one of the dark curtains in the room. _Let's be honest, the thugs in this place weren't smart enough to stay hidden long enough to surprise anyone._

However, that left me with a bit of a problem. I had gone all the way to the opposite side of the museum and still hadn't found Penguin. I guess I could backtrack and see if I could find any rooms I had missed the first time around. I was still standing under the T-Rex when its loud roar shook me out of my thoughts. I jumped and looked up, seriously considering shooting it out of frustration, but got distracted when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.

There was a case underneath the T-Rex that had blood on the edges of the broken glass. _Penguin must've been putting live subjects into these cases. _But that wasn't what I was staring at. In the reflection of the glass, I had seen movement from something in another case across from that one. Slowly, I turned around and started walking towards the case in the corner of the room. I stood in front of it, not quite believing what I was seeing.

In what was probably the only unbroken display case in the entire damn museum was the man I had been looking for in the first place. I think he noticed me about the same time I had noticed him. His one good eye was staring at me with a look of shock on his face. My face showed no emotion. I tilted my head to the side, wondering how he got in there. Batman could've put him in there, or maybe Two-Face's men. No, that couldn't be. Those guys would've known for certain that he was alive if they had put him in there. _Certainly he wouldn't have been hiding in there this whole time would he? _I didn't want to think about it.

"Well, this is certainly a surprise." He spoke in that English sort of accent he had. Obviously when Penguin had sent me out into Arkham City the first time, he hadn't had much faith in me returning.

"I could say the same thing?" I bit back sharply, raising an eyebrow in the process. Normally I wouldn't have been so bold, but come on. He was trapped in a glass case without any weapons whatsoever. This was actually kind of sad.

"I'm sorry what was that?" He growled back. He sounded pissed, but I had a hard time caring right then. I had found him and was going to let him out, shouldn't he be at least a little grateful? "Well, are you going to get me out of this thing or not?" He asked vehemently.

I nodded my head almost mechanically. He began explaining, "There's a latch on top of the exhibit. I don't know if you can reach it, but you need to unlatch it." He sarcastically said.

So that's how it's gonna be? While he was still blabbering on about me unlatching the damn lever or whatever it was, I brought the gun up and fired off three shots into the glass. Penguin hit the deck as glass rained down all around him.

I lowered the gun and watched as he slowly stood up and climbed out of the case. He got onto the ground and just stared at me. I don't think he knew what to say at that moment. "You've changed, girl." That was all he said. I wanted to say so much to him at that moment. It was partially his fault to begin with that I was this messed up. He was the one who sent me out into the city to do his dirty deeds.

"That's kind of a given when you've spent any amount of time in this place." I bit out as monotonously as I could. Now that he was out of the case, I didn't want him doing anything to me. Plus, in a strange way, I did kind of respect this man.

He narrowed his eyes at me and said, "I like it."

I was kind of confused. "Why would you like this place?"

He shook his head and said, "No not the prison. I hate it here. Hopefully when Strange started blowing up this place, he managed to kill a good bit of its inhabitants." He paused and started walking towards the stairs leading back down to the hallway I had just emerged from. He used a key to open a gate on the right side of the hall. I stepped down towards the room and saw him emerge holding an umbrella. "I was talking about you, your new attitude. You've seen the evil in life now. You didn't let it beat you though. That makes you a stronger person than you'll ever realize. Not to mention you made it back here in one piece. That in itself says a lot." He began walking towards the doorway with the two bodies on either side of it. Pointing towards them with the umbrella, he turned to me and said, "Plus, it seems to me that the city didn't change you. It just let you realize who you truly are," He turned and motioned for me to follow him before finishing, "a killer."

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxox oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

We had backtracked all the way to the room with the shark in the water. We hadn't run into any more inmates on our way back, thankfully. Although, I was kind of curious to see Penguin in action, I wasn't going to lie. At the doorway to the room, he paused, causing me to stop behind him. We had just come up on the scene I had left earlier, still complete with the fire extinguisher foam everywhere. "I may have hit the jackpot when I enlisted you to help me. You're quite the little killing machine." He gave a demented chuckle before continuing onto the platform. He brought out another key and inserted it onto a panel on the wall. When he turned it, a platform began rising out of the water that allowed us to walk freely from one side of the room to the other.

He started across the platform that was now stationed a couple of feet above the water. "I don't think many people can say they have a pet shark in this place." I said, trying to fill the silence.

Chuckling, he said, "You've met Tiny then? Just be glad you didn't meet him earlier when I was going to toss you in there with him." I shivered at that thought. I _was _glad. More than he realized. "Your name's Violet right?" He glanced back as we continued across, but instead of heading back to the room with the cops, we took a right towards a room I hadn't even realized was there before.

To answer his question I said, "Yeah." Then after a few moments of silence, I asked, "Where exactly are we going?" I noticed these villains all had a habit of not saying where they were headed. They just walk around with determination in their step and tried to look important.

"Well Violet, if I intend to take this place back, I'm going to need men and weapons." He said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. I was going to ask what he meant, but he seemed to know that and beat me to it. "The two idiots you shot earlier mentioned Two-Face was hauled up in the armory with some of my men and a lot of my weapons."

I didn't know how he expected the two of us to take on Two-Face and a bunch of his men on our own, unless he was some freakishly amazing fighter, but I didn't think that was the case. "And you think it'll be just a matter of walking in there and demanding that they leave?"

He chuckled that wheezy chuckle he does and said, "Don't be stupid. That would be suicide." I narrowed my eyes at him. I_ really_ hated it when people called me stupid. "If I'm correct, and I _am,_ we won't have to lift a finger when we walk in there." We were walking through another darkened hallway leading towards a door. I was still confused, but for some reason I was still following this guy. "Someone had a bigger problem with him than even I do, and she's someone you _really _don't want to piss off. You saw what she did back at the pit." He reached down and opened the door.

_She?_ So it wasn't Batman after all. I walked through the door behind him and immediately saw a Two-Face thug laying face down with a gun a couple of feet away from him. _He wasn't getting up anytime soon._ Who was this woman? We continued our way into the room, Penguin gaining a sort of swagger in his step, the farther we walked into the room.

Someone was screaming a considerable amount of obscenities in a deep masculine voice. "We'll get our revenge, you bitch! Nobody steals from us!" _Looks like we missed the party._

There was a bridge in the middle of the room with another Two-Face thug passed out on it. We walked up the steps onto the bridge and I saw a rope tied to one of the spokes on the side of bridge. It was tossed over the side and moving occasionally like someone was tied to the end of it and flopping around.

At this point Penguin was doing his demonic chuckle again. He approached the side of the bridge with me close behind; I was interested in who was hanging on the other side. Penguin started, "Well look who it is! What should I do with you? Add you to my collection, or bypass that entirely and feed your half-rotted body to Tiny? Hell, I don't know if he would even eat your ugly ass." I looked over the side at who was suffering Penguin's abuse.

A man was hanging by his ankle from the rope. When Penguin spoke the man looked up and glared something fierce at Penguin. The look in his eyes was pure hatred, but even that was masked behind a layer of hysteria. I could tell just from looking at this guy that he _really_ had some mental issues. I stared more closely at him and saw his two toned suit. _So this is Two-Face. _I hadn't seen him at all the entire time I was in here.

I was busy looking at his attire, so I was startled when he shouted back up, "Try as much as you want, you can't kill us Cobblepot. We'll rip your wings from that fat little body before you have a chance to lay a flipper on us!" I didn't understand what was up with the whole "we" and "us" thing at first. But then it clicked. _He actually believes he's two different people. He must have a serious mental disorder. Isn't there some kind of disease that makes you think you have two different personalities or something? _

Those two were still busy bickering, so when I heard a sound behind me, I spun around with the gun at ready. Penguin seemed to notice me go into "kill-mode" because he shut up and walked up near me. A woman was sitting on the side of the bridge a little bit away from us. She was in a full body black leather suit.

"I figured you'd be done with him by now, Catwoman." Penguin said from beside me, a smile hidden in his voice. I didn't take my eyes off of her though. Something about her screamed, "don't trust me!" Of course, I wasn't known for being the best judge of character.

"Oh you know me too well, Ozzy. As much as I'd enjoy staying and chatting, I have to go track down the rest of my loot. Feel free to do whatever you like to Harv. Just make sure it's painful." She gracefully stood from her perched position, not making a sound in the process. _So that's how she snuck up on us._ She began walking over towards the exit before shouting back, "There's a group of your men tied up down below." With that, she exited the room.

Penguin stood there staring after her for a second before looking at me and saying, "Don't ever trust that one." He walked off the bridge and made his way to a staircase that lead down below. I glanced over the side of the bridge one last time to see Two-Face staring up at me with those crazed eyes. There was so much anger in them that I can honestly say I was more frightened while staring into this man's eyes than when I looked into the Joker's. I quickly went after Penguin. I found him letting about a dozen of his men out of a locked room. They were looking a little worse for wear to say the least.

"All right boys, listen up!" Penguin shouted and immediately they all went silent, "We're taking back this museum. Anyone you come across that's not one of us, I want them dead. I don't care if you kill them, torture them, or toss them in the tank. I just want them _gone!_" I didn't really know if Penguin was crazy or not. From the way he was talking, he seemed at least a good deal sane. He definitely wasn't Joker crazy.

The thugs all grabbed guns and ran up the stairs. Penguin and I brought up the rear of the group. The men spread out through the room and began taking care of the unconscious Two-Face men. While we were standing there I asked, "What are you going to do with Two-Face?" I didn't know why I was curious. It was probably just the fact that he was one of the most powerful men in here and another major rival of Penguin.

"Don't you worry about him. I'll personally tend to him. I have something special in mind for that one." He gave me a crooked smile and I kind of had an idea what that _special _something would be. Speaking of Two-Face, he had gone quiet since Catwoman had left. I thought about going back up to the bridge, but I was interrupted when the door to the room burst open and banged off the wall.

The Penguin thugs on the top floor with us all froze and pointed their guns towards the door. _The cops wouldn't actually be brave enough to come this far into the museum would they?_

"_PENGUIN!" _That was no cop's voice. I spun around and stared at the masked man who had just come through the door. I couldn't help but smile as I saw him make his way over towards where we were standing at the end of the bridge. _This man was indestructible._ He rounded the corner to the straightaway, staring down Penguin, but his eyes landed on me and it looked like relief passed through his eyes. I didn't know if it was my mind playing tricks on me, but it looked like his body had loosened up a little when he saw me.

Penguin however, had stiffened considerably when he had come around the corner, "I'm just getting all kinds of visitors tonight. What can I do for you Black Mask?" He didn't sound too thrilled to have Roman standing in front of him. Roman, who had been staring at me, tore his eyes from my face when Penguin spoke.

He kind of disregarded Penguin and said, "Glad to see you _are _capable of following directions. At least that's one thing you've done right tonight." He was being an ass, but I could tell he actually was glad I wasn't dead. Penguin kind of looked between the two of us.

"You know each other? Just perfect…" He grumbled the last part while crossing his arms. Looking between the two of them, I was kind of startled by how much of a size difference there was between the two of them. Penguin was about my size, and Roman was over six feet tall. It was a funny sight.

I glanced back at Roman and noticed a man standing behind Roman for the first time. I leaned to the side to get a better view of him and asked, "Who's your friend?"

Roman turned around like he just remembered he had brought someone with him. I heard Penguin growl again and said, "This isn't a damn _hotel! _You people can't just come walking in here!"

The man in question walked forward and said, "Edward Nigma, at your service!" I raised an eyebrow wondering if I was supposed to know who this guy was. He further elaborated, "Perhaps you know me by my other name, the Riddler!" I still had my eyebrow raised, but this time I shook my head.

That's when I looked at him really closely. He had on a dirty greenish suit. A dirty greenish suit, that I was _sure_ I had seen somewhere else tonight. Wait a second, "It's you!" I pointed at him in the excitement of my revelation. He looked confused, "I saw you earlier!" He still looked confused then, "You pointed a gun at me."

"That was you! You never answered my question, you know." He looked at me closely now. His bright green eyes were peering at me from behind his glasses. I had blew him off as just another nobody inmate earlier. But now, seeing him standing here beside Black Mask and Penguin, I knew I had seriously misjudged him.

"Enough of this! What do you two want? I have a lot of bodies to get rid of, but I'm sure two more wouldn't set us back too far." Penguin threatened. I'm sure this was all a show. Something like a "you're invading my territory" sort of thing.

I noticed Roman's hand move towards the gun in one of his holsters. I didn't really know who would win in a fight against Roman and the Penguin. Still looking between everyone, it was finally the Riddler who spoke up, "Oh enough of this. We have a reason for being here, one I'm sure you'll appreciate." He had the kind of voice that when he spoke, everything came out in a know-it-all sort of tone.

"Well, I'm not getting any younger here. One of you spit it out, before I have to beat it out of you." Penguin sure was a violent fellow when you really got him wound up. Hopefully I'd never be on the receiving end of that violence.

Roman looked Penguin dead in the eyes and said something that caused both of us to freeze up and all traces of violence to disappear immediately, "Joker's dead."

**A/N: Hello, readers! We're down to only three chapters of the main story line left now. I'll try to have those written and posted by the end of this week. I don't want to feel like I'm rushing the end of the story, but I did want to try to finish the story by the end of this year. Anyway, I still want to know everyone's opinions on the possibility of a sequel! Let me know what you think!**


	17. Chapter 17

"So now what?" I asked carefully. I looked at each of the three powerful men surrounding me. Roman and Edward didn't seem too phased by the news, but Penguin looked ecstatic. And by ecstatic, I mean like the demented version of someone who just won the lottery.

"Now? Now we take back Arkham City as our own!" He started walking away, but stopped, and said, "Starting with the museum! Now that we caught the rat in a trap," He pointed to the bridge where Two-Face was hanging. "and the Joker's out of the way, no one can stop us! Not even the Bat!" He laughed as he walked off, yelling orders towards his thugs. "I want all of you ready to fight back the museum! That means killing anyone who happens to get in our way. But before that, I want Two-Face taken over to the war room so I can personally deal with him later."

The Riddler walked forward as a few Penguin thugs trotted by, heading towards the top of the bridge to reel in the fish. "How did Two-Face manage to get caught in a predicament such as this?" The Riddler seemed fascinated by the fact that the crime lord had been caught so easily.

"Catwoman." I explained bluntly. He nodded his head knowingly. I was watching as Two-Face was brought up to the top of the bridge and drug over the side. He landed on his butt, but was almost immediately on his feet. Roman moved in front of me to act as a pseudo shield, I assumed, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scene on the bridge.

For one, Two-Face was a towering man. Just the way he held himself screamed power. He had broad shoulders and although he wasn't by any means fat, I could tell he had muscle under his two-tone suit. The main thing I couldn't stop staring at however was his fighting. He was going at the three Penguin guys, all of which who were armed mind you, with the ferocity of a rabid Rottweiler. He managed to punch one of the guys in the face and knock him down. I could tell the other two were starting to panic. More penguin guys ran up from the other side of the bridge, but this didn't slow Two-Face down. Finally, one of the guys had enough sense to hit him over the head with the butt of a gun. It didn't knock him out, but it gave them enough time to get handcuffs on him and take control of the situation.

In total there were five guys surrounding him, all with their guns trained on him, as they escorted the dazed man out of the room. They walked him right past the three of us standing there.

I hadn't seen this man close up, so when he walked by close enough for me to reach out and touch him, I was mesmerized. His face was _literally_ split right down the center into two separate halves. Roman pushed me back to make room as the men walked him by.

"Lookin sharp Harv!" Edward chimed from his spot across from us as Two-Face walked by. But he didn't appear to hear Edward, because right then he was too busy staring me down with an intensity that made my insides turn to ice. I made eye contact with this man and felt like a rabbit being stared down by a hungry wolf.

The left half of his face looked like raw meat before you toss it in a frying pan. It looked _painful. _His mouth was brought back in a snarl that made him look permanently pissed off. The right half of his face however looked normal, handsome almost, if it weren't for the bloody claw marks slashed down his cheek. The one thing that was the same on either side of his face were his eyes. They were a dark brown, almost black, and they were drilling holes into mine right now.

The eye contact was finally cut off when Roman stepped in front of me and snarled at him, "What the hell are you looking at?" _Obviously someone wasn't afraid of Two-Face. _Then again, I doubted Roman was afraid of anyone. I think he just hated everyone.

I was left standing there between the Riddler and Black Mask as Two-Face was walked off to his fate. Before they walked out the door I could've sworn I saw him turn around and look back at me for a split second. Something about that man seriously scared me. I just hope I'm _never _in a room alone with him. I think I'd rather be alone with the Joker.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xox

A shot echoed through the air as Roman shot another unlucky Two-Face thug. We were making our way through the museum's many hallways, taking care of any stray Two-Face thugs. Well, Penguin and Roman were taking care of them. I was hanging back and talking to Edward. I had offered to help, but I don't really think Roman wanted me to get involved, which pissed Penguin off, so I just didn't argue.

"So, you still never answered my question you know." It was Edward that spoke. I was walking side-by-side with him, about fifteen feet behind Penguin, Roman, and some random thugs.

"About what? My name?" I looked at him and saw him make a, _what other question would it be, _face. "Violet." I could see him nodding out of the corner of my eye.

"That's a beautiful name for a beautiful girl." He said in a loud voice. _Was this guy trying to hit on me?_ I looked at him, confused at his tactics, but he simply winked.

"Hey! You're lagging, get up here!" I heard Roman's booming voice call from ahead. I looked forward and saw that he had stopped and was holding a gun at his side, waiting for the two of us to get closer. I thought he was mad at us at first, but judging by the look he was giving Edward, I don't think that anger included me.

We were about five feet away when he turned around and caught up to Penguin. Edward spoke again, "Hmm. That's interesting." I scrunched my eyebrows together. "I wondered why he was in such a hurry to get back to the museum." He looked at me and smiled. I wasn't following him. I looked forward to see the thugs gripping another Two-Face guy. I looked away as they took him out. It was odd that I couldn't look at this sort of thing after what I'd done to people tonight. But since I wasn't in "kill mode" I guess I couldn't stomach watching others die.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Care to elaborate?" I asked in a bored voice. I didn't want to seem like I was too enthusiastic, but I really was curious as to what the Riddler was talking about.

He looked at me over the top of his glasses as we continued to walk down the hallway. He didn't seem to have a problem with seeing these people being murdered. That alone led me to wonder what kind of man he was. He seemed okay enough, arrogant, definitely, full of himself, yes, but he didn't strike me as a hands-on murdering type. "You can't be serious?"

Now it was my turn to give him a look, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about." He looked ahead at Roman, who was looking back at us again with narrowed eyes.

Edward then slung his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him, "Let's have a little chat. Now just do me a favor and act like you're really interested in what I'm saying. Okay?" I kind of looked at him funny but nodded anyway. What was he up to? "Now don't be obvious about it, but look up towards your masked friend."

I discreetly looked up and saw Roman standing stock-still staring at us. He was gripping the gun rather tightly. He was too busy staring daggers at Edward to see the Two-Face guy trying to get past him. Penguin saw him however, and yelled, "Sionis! Pay attention!" Roman spun around at fast as lightening and fired off an entirely uncalled for amount of shots into the Two-Face thug.

Edward patted me on the shoulder before leaning down close to my ear and whispering, "I'm not being creepy, there's a point to all of this." I kind of doubted he wasn't being creepy because from my position he seemed plenty creepy. "You're an intelligent girl Violet. Naïve perhaps, but intelligent. You must have enough sense to know what it looks like when a man is smitten with a girl." _He wasn't talking about what I think he was talking about was he?_

_ "_Look, Mr. Nigma, you aren't really my type-" I started, but was interrupted by him slapping himself in the forehead.

"You honestly _can't _be that oblivious!" He sounded a little manic right then; I hadn't really expected that. "I'm not talking about me! I'm talking about him!" He blatantly pointed at Roman now, who was busy beating the brains, literally, out of another thug with the butt of his gun. I looked away in disgust.

"He can't even stand me half the time." I didn't believe for a second that Roman liked me in the slightest. At the most he _tolerated _me.

"You're joking right? The fact that he can stand you for _half _the time is a miracle in itself. Black Mask doesn't like anybody." He stopped and pointed at me now, "But you, no I can see the way he looks at you. You know, I have a higher intelligence than most; I can pick up on these kind of things."

I shook my head, "That may be, but you're wrong about this." That definitely was not the case. I could tell I annoyed the hell out of Roman. I figured the only reason he even tried to help me in here at all was because…well I wasn't really sure, but it wasn't because he had some high school crush on me. He was a heartless murderer, he had told me that himself. _He wasn't Roman Sionis anymore. The only thing left was Black Mask._

"I'm never wrong." That was a pretty bold statement. "Trust me. I thought he was having a coronary on the way here. He was all but sprinting to get here. I didn't understand why until he saw you." He paused as we came back to the room with the shark. The thugs split to the left to go towards another room while some of them stayed with us, walking back to the room where the cops were. "So, riddle me this, what does an infamous villain find so appealing in a mostly innocent teenage girl?" He tilted his head to the side.

I looked up to where Roman was standing next to Penguin now. It looked like they were fighting about how they should go into the room with the cops. I still didn't believe that he liked me like that. He was older than me, a lot older if I had to guess. He probably just looked at me like a little girl anyway. I shrugged towards Edward and said, "I honestly couldn't tell you. I've never been good with riddles."

He smirked at that. "That's a shame, because I'm an expert at them." Judging from the multitude of question marks riddling his suit, I'd say he definitely liked riddles.

We caught up to Penguin and Roman then, coming to a stop near them. Roman turned to us and said, "Oh so you two finally decided to join us? How nice of you." He spat out like it was dirt in his mouth.

I turned to Penguin, ignoring Edwards, "We were just too busy enjoying ourselves." Comment. I'm honestly surprised Roman's eyes didn't turn red right then. The grip on his gun looked painful.

"So what's the plan with the cops?" I motioned towards the door that I knew to be barricaded from the other side.

"We're going in and killing all of those pigs is what we're doing. They've made themselves too cozy in my museum." He was fiddling with one of his umbrellas. I now knew why people were so weary of them. I had seen things come out of his umbrellas that would scar some people for life, mentally and physically.

"Alright then. Let's go, I'm ready for some action." I stepped forward towards the door. I didn't want to talk about uncomfortable subjects with Edward anymore; I was ready to be useful.

Roman threw his arm out like a steel beam and stopped me from going any further. "You aren't doing anything. You're staying here. You'd do nothing but get in the way and slow us down." He said this coldly and I couldn't tell if he really meant it or not. Why did Edward have to say any of that stuff? Now every time Roman says something to me, I'm going to second guess it.

I threw my hands up and said, "Fine! How about I just throw myself in the tank with Tiny? That's probably all I'm good for at this point anyway." Skulking away, I could hear Penguin chuckle and what I thought was a growl from Roman. I threw myself down on a crate at the end of the hallway. If they didn't want my help, then fine. I'd sit here on my ass and do nothing.

"Since Violet here is going to be waiting all by her lonesome, I'm going to take it upon myself to keep her company. You know, talk about anything that might _pop _up?" He threw a look towards me and gave me a wink. Now, I knew I shouldn't be encouraging him, but I couldn't help myself. I gave him a mischievous smile and blew him a kiss.

"Good, that's settled. Let's get this show on the road then." I could tell Penguin's patience was running thin. He was tiring of the Riddler's antics and judging by the smoldering look Roman was throwing the two of us, he probably didn't want to linger enough for a fight to break out.

"Fine by me." Roman spit out and began stalking away from the hallway, off to some other part of the museum.

"We'll make our way around the building and get them when they aren't paying attention." Penguin explained while trying to decide between two umbrellas. "Shouldn't take too long. You two princesses can just sit here on your prissy asses and wait for us to come get you." He gave the two of us a stern look before walking off in the same direction Roman had disappeared to.

"Oh how I love tormenting people." The Riddler proclaimed in a dreamy voice while tossing himself down on a crate directly across from me. I looked out over the giant mass of water, towards the other doorway leading to the front of the museum and could see the last straggling Penguin thugs vacating the room. Surprisingly I wasn't too worried about being left alone with the Riddler. Other than being a little eccentric, and a tad, alright _majorly_, narcissistic, he seemed okay. Speaking of which, I looked back over and was a little unnerved to find the Riddler staring at me smiling.

"Soooo. How did you manage to get roped into coming here, Mr. Nigma?" I asked, not exactly liking the awkward silence.

"Call me Edward. Or Eddie. Hell, you can call me daddy if you really want to. I know a certain masked man who would _really _like that nickname." I couldn't help but laugh at that. He was actually pretty funny. "But anyway, I'm not exactly sure how I managed to end up back _here_." He scratched at his scruffy face and glanced off towards the murky water for a second. "You do know that I'm who he was visiting earlier when you first went missing right?" _What the hell is he talking about?_

My face must've conveyed my confusion because he elaborated for me, "When you were supposed to be waiting outside like a good little puppy, but you happened to wander away?" He asked questioningly. I still didn't know what he was talking about. "You know, outside, under the bridge, inside an electric fence?" _No. Friggin. Way. _

Honestly, I felt like my whole night had just come full circle. _That's who he left me under that damn bridge to talk to!_ "You know! If I would've been able to come inside your little lair, I wouldn't have gone through half the shit I did tonight! It's because of you that Penguin's men took me in the first place!" I was getting worked up.

"Well, if you hadn't have went through half the stuff you've experienced tonight, you wouldn't be the girl sitting in front of me right now." He shrugged as he simply explained all of this; "Seems to me like your abduction helped you in more ways than one." He paused then, "And for the record, had I known you would be getting kidnapped outside my door, I would've let you come in." _Well that's actually pretty nice of him to say._ "I thought Black Mask was going to shoot me when we walked out and you were gone. _Phew._ I haven't seen him that mad in a while." _Okay, disregard my previous comment._

"Whatever, it's done and over with. I don't want to talk about it anymore." Quite frankly, I just didn't want him to bring up Roman again. "You still didn't tell me how you ended up here? Riddle me that." I gave him a sly smirk, which he returned.

"Don't quit your day job kid. But anyway, I was just taking a stroll, trying to calm down after Batman thwarted one of my plans." He sounded a little neurotic right then, but I chose to ignore it. "I had been walking around for a while when I came to overhear some gossip. Some Two-Face thugs were talking about the Batman killing the Joker. That was around the same time I saw Black Mask emerging from a manhole. He was in quite the hurry to get back to the museum, which was exactly where I was heading to let Penguin know of the new developments." He paused then explained, "If I had to choose a new mob boss in this place, I would without a doubt choose Penguin. Harvey is, as you've witnessed, too unstable for his own good. A man who makes decisions solely by flipping a coin, needs some serious help."

I thought that was a pretty bold statement, considering he was also one of the famous villains in this place, known for being a tad unstable. Again, I didn't say anything about it. "So, since the two of us had _teamed up_, so to speak, we easily made it into the museum and took out Harvey's lackeys. And that about covers it up until we came into the armory."

Taking everything in that he had just told me, there was one thing that really got me thinking. "You said you'd heard that Batman killed the Joker?" That didn't make sense to me.

"I know, it doesn't seem to fit with me either. But, I heard this from a group of thugs remember. I wouldn't trust their word. Perhaps they misspoke?" He raised his eyebrow mysteriously.

"Do you mean you think someone else killed the Joker or that he isn't even dead to begin with?" He had kind of left it open to interpretation. I liked knowing answers, not having to guess.

"Ahh! That's the real riddle in all of this isn't it? Is the Joker _really _dead? A man who has seemingly come back from the 'dead' too many times to count?" He paused, spreading his arms out to either side of him, "No one can really know. The only person who would actually know would be Batman, and since he isn't exactly Mr. Personality, I don't think he'll be fessing up anytime soon." He lowered his arms, slapping his hands off his pant legs in the process. _He's quite the theatrical one._

I still hadn't heard anything from the other side of the doors at the end of the hallway. _What was taking them so long?_ Getting up, I looked straight ahead and started creeping towards the door, but not before pausing to ask, "So what's your opinion on it? Do you think he's actually dead?" I didn't turn to look at him, waiting to hear the answer instead.

"No. Not one bit. He's got so many aces up his sleeve, it wouldn't surprise me if he had a few clones running around here or something." _These villains sure thought highly of the Joker. I didn't understand why. If they all combined against him, they could've taken care of him a long time ago._ "But I wouldn't count on this being the last time the Joker's badly painted face will be seen tormenting Gotham. He'll be back."

This city was so messed up, that his reemergence from the dead really wouldn't surprise me. I continued creeping down the hall, hearing Eddie ask, "Hey, you better be careful. If they start opening fire from the other side, I'd hate to see you get gunned down from any stray bullets." He said this with a warning to his voice, but he didn't exactly come across as sincere. In fact, he seemed like he'd actually like to see that scenario go down.

I got right up against the door and put my ear to it. I could hear voices on the other side. They seemed excited about something. I couldn't make it out at first, "….sending…..in now….dead…Batman…..carrying the body….." I placed a finger in my ear that wasn't against the door to block out the echoing sounds of the large room behind me. I could see the Riddler get up from his seat and start making his way towards me. _Obviously he hates being out of the loop as much as I do_.

I still couldn't hear anything definitive, but what I did get was, "Yeah, the call just came in on the walkies, they're sending police in momentarily." _Well that wasn't good._ I looked at the Riddler and stepped away from the door. His face was dark, his back against the light in the other room. "They're sending the police squad into Arkham City." He seemed to be thinking the same thing as me. _If they're sending police into the prison, the first place they're coming to is bound to be the building with about a dozen other officers trapped inside. This damn museum._

"They better-" I started expressing my worry, but was cut short from the gunfire erupting from the other side of the door. I could vaguely hear the shouts of the cops from the other side as they were taken by surprise. In reality the gunfire only lasted for five minutes tops, but standing in that dark hallway with Eddie, listening to the weak resistance of the cops, it felt like it took hours. _Would they have killed me if I had stayed with the cops and had been in there when they busted in? _Probably. They wouldn't have bothered asking me questions. _Looks like I chose wisely afterall._

Eddie and I didn't speak at all, even when the gunfire ceased. It was almost guaranteed that Pegnuin and his crew had triumphed, but when we heard movement directly from the other side of the door, I was surprised at Eddie's train of thought. He took a gun from the waistband of his pants, _the one he had pointed at me earlier_, and immediately stepped in front of me. He pushed me back away from the door, while positioning the gun at eyelevel, pointed directly at the forehead of the person who was about to come through the door.

Out of curiosity, I grabbed the arm that was stretched back, keeping me behind him, and peered around his body towards the door. The movement was becoming less and less, but it was obvious that whoever it was was busy de-barricading the door. I looked at Eddie and was startled by the steely stare he was giving the door. Gone was any trace of humor that had been present since the moment I had first spoken to him. _I need to remember that all of these people in here are dangerous. No matter how nice they may seem. They. Are. Dangerous. They make a living out of manipulating others. _Had he been manipulating me? I didn't think so, but I was unsettled at the thought of it.

My stare was directed back towards the doors when the nob turned and opened inward to reveal two Penguin thugs and Roman. _No, he wasn't worried. He just coincidentally got the job to come open the doors._ I needed to stop thinking. My brain hurt. "Did I interrupt something?" He looked at Eddie and me, with my arms wrapped around one of his. I immediately released Eddie's arm. _Awkward._

"No, I think we were finished. But I could certainly go for round 2. How about it?" Eddie lowered the gun and turned to wiggle his eyebrows at me. Almost as if a switch had been flipped, the same humorous light had flicked back on behind his eyes.

I rolled mine as I walked by, "Maybe next time." I walked into the room. Roman, who still had his hand on the doorknob, didn't move until I was fully in the room. Only then did he let go of the door and turned to follow me. I looked back and saw that he was between Eddie and I. Eddie seemed to notice too because he had a huge smile plastered across his face. I sneered at him, but spun back around when I made eye contact with Roman. Why was it so awkward all of the sudden?

We walked back down to the middle of the large room where Penguin and some of his men were waiting. I noticed the blood puddles around the room, but luckily they had taken the bodies away before we walked into the room.

Penguin seemed to be in good spirits, having a lit cigar hanging out of his mouth as proof. He gestured around the room and proclaimed, "What did I say? Those pigs couldn't take my museum and think they would live!" He took a puff of the cigar and continued; "Now we take back Arkham City. With the Joker gone and Two-Face awaiting his death, we'll be in charge of the prison. No one will stand in our way!" The men around the room cheered. I looked at Eddie. _He didn't know the police force had a target on his head at this very moment._

Deciding I'd speak up I said, "The police are already on their way into the City." That immediately shut everyone up. I felt my face flush a little as everyone's attention was now directly focused on me.

Penguin narrowed his good eye at me and asked, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I knew I needed to explain, and quickly. When he took a menacing step towards me, I saw both Roman and Eddie shift in my peripheral vision. Eddie was still holding the gun from upstairs, and Roman always seemed to be carrying some weapon or another. Right now it was what looked like a machine gun.

"I heard the cops talking outside the door before you came in here." I wasn't going to mention that I'd been in here earlier before I had saved Penguin. Some things were better left unsaid. "They said they were sending the police in momentarily, which means they're probably on their way here now." I let that hang in the air.

Penguin seemed to find humor in this because he threw his cigar down and began wheezily laughing. "Let them come! They can't break into the museum! This is a fortress. That is, if they even make it this far into the city. The other inmates won't let a full squad of policemen waltz in here." Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like he was trying to convince himself.

Eddie decided to put his two cents in, "That may have been true a mere hour ago, but any resistance is nonexistent now; other than the opposition coming from your humble abode here of course." I could hear the mocking in his speech.

"How the hell do you figure that? There are scores of inmates in here that are just as bloodthirsty as I am when it comes to the pigs that run the city." Penguin certainly wasn't laughing anymore.

"The order has been disorganized. These thugs may be an angry mob under a leader, but take the leader away and they are nothing but a group of cowards. Two of these 'leaders' have already been taken out. The Joker's dead and Two-Face is just waiting his turn. Plus, Strange managed to kill possibly more than half of the inmates in this prison. With that many prisoners taken out, the remaining will be weary of acting to begin with. You can try to hold out as long as you want, but by the time the sun comes up, this prison will be flooded with cops. Resistance is futile, as the saying goes." He trailed off on that ominous note.

Penguin looked like a child who had just found out Christmas was cancelled. He obviously hadn't thought about all of the factors that had led up to this moment in time. I looked at the Riddler and really wondered how smart this man was. He had obviously seen this coming for a while now. Penguin spun around and went storming off towards his office, barking orders to the henchmen to go find more weapons or something like that.

"So, with that, I think I will bow out. I need to tie some loose ends with the Bat before the GCPD ruin my opportunity." Eddie began walking forward towards the back doors, but turned around and walked back. Stopping in front of me, he leant forward, picked up my hand, and planted a kiss on the back of it, "It has be a _pleasure_ having spent this time in your company tonight, Violet. We must do this again sometime. I'm sure this won't be the last time I'll be seeing you." He winked at me before turning and heading back towards the door.

I smiled, remembering something, "Oh I'm sure the next time will be even better, _daddy!_" Eddie started cackling and continued doing so into the chilly night air. Only when the heavy wooden door closed, did his laugh fade away.

_"Daddy?" _I heard Roman growl from behind me. I was actually having fun tormenting him now. Maybe Eddie was telling the truth…_nah._ He was just messing with me. I turned around and looked into Black Mask's gaze. I felt like I was being sucked into the eyeholes of the mask. He lunged towards me, making me stiffen, but he only grabbed my elbow and began leading me away from the lingering group of thugs.

"What are you doing?" I asked, wondering where he was taking me.

"The police are on their way to this place. Penguin isn't going to go down without some poor excuse of a confrontation. At this point I can't see the GCPD having the patience to put up with his bullshit when they get here." He was still guiding me over towards one of the tables pushed up against the wall. He sat me down in one of the chairs and put his hand on the table, leaning into my face so his back was to the room. "There's going to be a standoff and the police aren't going to care about who they're shooting, especially since we just killed a dozen of their guys."

It did sound like a really horrible situation when he put it that way. "So what are you planning on doing?" I was kind of worried about what his answer was going to be. I leaned back in the chair, unzipping my coat. It was a million degrees in this room.

"Don't get too cozy." He stood up at full height then, glancing back at the henchmen who seemed oblivious to the two of us over here. He looked back at me with those haunting eyes and said, "I'm getting you out of here before the bullets start flying and you're caught in the middle."

"Okay. Then what? Once we're out of the museum, I mean?" It's sad that I didn't even argue with him about his plans anymore.

"No, you don't understand. Shit's going to hit the fan soon in this prison and I'm not going to let you be in here when it happens." _Was he saying what I think he was saying? _"I'm getting you out of Arkham City for good."


	18. Chapter 18

"This is a horrible idea." I deadpanned, questioning Roman's intelligence for the first time tonight. I knew he didn't fear people that he by all means should, but this plan was just plain dumb.

"Can you think of anything better? I sure can't. The clock is already ticking, I'm not going to sit around and think up some elaborate plan of action." Roman shot back at me. He had a determined tone to his voice and I could tell no matter what I would say to him, it wouldn't persuade him any differently.

I was still seated at the small table against the wall, watching Roman now checking his gun and ammunition. He was steadily pulling bullets out of his pocket and shoving them in the gun. "Penguin isn't going to just let us walk out of here? Especially since he knows the cops are headed here now." I looked over at the henchmen. "Not to mention we're outnumbered. In case you didn't notice."

His gaze shot up at me. With that one look, my mouth snapped shut and any other words I was planning on uttering died on my lips before I had the chance to say them. He jammed the gun back together and said, "This isn't up for discussion. Now get up." He spun around, keeping a tight grip on the gun in his right hand. He had it lowered by his side. For now. "Stay close."

For once I wasn't going to argue. I got right up behind him, probably a little too close for comfort, but at the moment he didn't seem to mind. The thugs barely glanced at us when we walked by. _So far so good at least._

We made our way into the hall leading to the back doors. I looked back and noticed the thugs had stopped what they were doing and were now staring at us. _This isn't good._ We had almost reached the door when Penguin came out of his office and stepped between the door and us. Roman stopped a few feet away from him. I got as close as I could without being too weird about it.

"Where do you think you're going?" Penguin spit out, staring at the two of us. I heard movement in the hall behind us. I turned to see a few thugs coming towards us. Each had a gun. This didn't bode well for Roman and I.

"You know damn well where we're going. I'm not sticking around and waiting for the cops to get here, Cobblepot." Roman growled out in that raspy sort of demonic voice he had.

"Running away like a coward are we Sionis? No wonder Joker took your precious steel mill so easily." He chuckled. I could see Roman visibly stiffen at his words. _I might get caught in a showdown before the cops even have a chance to get here at the rate this is going._

Roman scoffed, "That certainly wouldn't be the first bit of false information you've been fed tonight." _Just what did that mean? _Penguin seemed just as confused as I was, but was again distracted when Roman brought the gun up and motioned to the side, "Out of the way. We're done here."

"You don't get to order me around in _my _museum! I mean, look behind you!" He pointed with an umbrella, which came dangerously close to Roman's head, to the hall behind us. There were at least six thugs waiting at the ready to make swiss cheese of us. "Do you honestly think you have a shot in hell of getting out of here alive?"

Roman glanced back to the thugs now as well. Before turning around he briefly made eye contact with me. Something in his eyes ignited when he looked into mine, "Maybe I don't care about getting out of here alive? Maybe all I need to do is shoot you in the head before your thugs get a chance to do the same to me? Then what will happen to your piece of shit museum?" Penguin looked like he was trying to figure out if Roman was bluffing or not. _Hell, I was trying to figure out if he was bluffing or not._ "Either way, whether I walk out of those doors alive or am gunned down in this hallway right now, it won't matter in the end. Your time here is ticking. Perhaps you should spend your last moments in your fortress doing something more useful that arguing with me."

I swallowed thickly. My throat was really dry. My headache from before was pounding full force now. It was getting hard to focus on anything for too long. Overall, I was just tired of all the chaos this night had brought me.

"I'm not warning you again, Oswald. I _will _shoot you if you don't let us leave." Roman's tone left no room for argument. To reinforce this, he raised the gun and pointed it right at Penguin's forehead. I wondered why a guy like him wasn't considered one of the top baddies in here? _It certainly isn't because he isn't threatening enough._

"Boss. Do you want us to take care of him?" One of the thugs grunted out from behind us. I _really _hope Penguin doesn't say yes.

Penguin looked like he was trying to make heads or tails of the situation. In the end, I guess he figured this wasn't something worth getting shot over. _Smart man. I'm pretty sure Roman would've done it._ "No. They can go." He moved to the side to let us pass.

Roman's left arm shot back as he grabbed me by my arm and moved me in front of him. _Isn't that sweet. He's going to be my human shield. Oh wait, what if the cops are already outside? That would make _me _the human shield. Shit._

"Know this though. You're never welcome back here Sionis. Consider this the end of our business dealings for good." He pointed with his umbrella at me now, causing me to panic for a moment and Roman to raise his gun at Penguin again, "However, I _do_ hope to work with you again Violet. You've proven to be quite the little soldier. It's a shame I couldn't see you in action with my own eyes." He paused then shrugged, "There's always next time." He smiled.

He motioned for the thugs to go back to the business. Before disappearing back to the room he said a final, "You'll regret this, Black Mask. With Joker and Two-Face out of the way you just made yourself the enemy of the new king of Arkham City."

Roman began moving with me towards the doors, keeping his eyes on Penguin. "You put a lot of faith in rumors." _Did that mean he didn't believe Joker was dead either? _"As for calling yourself a king," I had finally reached the door and pulled it open so the cold air bit at my skin, "kings rule over kingdoms. Enjoy ruling yours for another hour or so." With that he followed me out into the air and slammed the door shut before Penguin could fire anything back.

We immediately took off. I still didn't know the whole layout of Arkham City, but I assumed we were heading to the front gate where I was first brought in. The streets were slick with ice and garbage, making me lose my balance a few times. Roman was ahead of me, fully sprinting without so much as stumbling once. I had to call for him to slow down, "Hey! Mind taking me with you!" He immediately stopped and waited for me to catch up.

I was puffing by the time I got next to him. There were barely any prisoners in the streets now. _This is creepy_. I had a sharp pain stabbing at the inside of my chest. Not to mention my brain felt like it was three times too big for my skull right now.

He turned to start walking again, but just then a group of cops rounded the corner of a building about fifty yards ahead of us. Quicker than I thought possible, Roman grabbed me and started dragging me into a nearby alleyway before the cops had a chance to see the two of us standing there. "Come on! Move it!" He was dragging me roughly by my arm. I wouldn't be surprised if he dislocated my shoulder.

"Ow! Roman, stop!" we rounded the corner in the alley so that we were out of sight and alone now. He spun around sharply and stared me down.

"What did you just call me?" My eyes widened as I realized what I had said. That's what I get for referring to him as that in my mind. "I told you, I'm not _Roman _anymore. Do you understand?" He got into my face. He had a crazed look in his eyes.

"I'm sorry! I just don't understand. You're still the same man, even behind your mask." It sounded weird coming out of my mouth. I guess he thought so too.

"God you sound like the damn shrinks at the Asylum." He huffed and turned to keep moving on. _How the hell did I get out of that one?_ "Just don't get into the habit of calling me that." We kept moving through alleyways.

I grumbled in defeat, "Penguin gets to call you Sionis…." I didn't think he heard me at first, but he turned and stared at me again.

"I'm sorry, I hadn't realized you were a fat, balding, midget. Then again…. some of those might apply." He turned and kept walking. _What an asshole! I wasn't balding, so that left two of the three. _

"You're such an ass." I expressed angrily to his back

He began laughing to himself as I said this. "No wonder why you've been getting winded so easily." He laughed louder at that. _Why am I following this man around again? _I couldn't help but think this was some sort of payback for the whole Eddie thing.

Just as I was about to say something back to him, he paused and held his hand up to tell me to shut up. _How'd he know I was even going to say anything to begin with?_

I didn't know why we were stopped to begin with, and then I heard it. We were by the back of an abandoned apartment building, but through a window I could see the light of a fire. I slowly walked over towards Roman. There were voices emanating through a broken window.

"That's what I just heard! Some of Two-Face's men were there when it was opened." I leaned forward to hear better, but Roman pulled the back of my coat to keep me where I was. I looked at him, but he was staring straight ahead at the window. "They said the cops just started pouring in once Batman walked out. It's true too! Batman was carrying the Joker's body out. He's really dead!" _So Batman's out of Arkham City and the Joker's body went with him. I guess Eddie was wrong after all._

"So the police are coming in now? What's that mean for Arkham City?" Another voice asked followed by a raspy cough.

"Well the Joker wasn't the only thing taken out of Arkham City. Right after he left that bastard Strange was carried out on a stretcher. I guess the explosion didn't kill him after all." _That was interesting, and disturbing. At least now Strange would live so he could get what he deserved_

Roman grabbed my waist and moved me around so we could walk away. "I gotta get you out of here before we miss the chance." I moved in step with him. If he thought that having the gate open meant a greater chance of me getting out of here, then I'd take it. I didn't know how he expected to get out with me though if so many cops were standing guard there.

"Strange better get what's coming to him. Once Gotham finds out what he's been doing in here, they'll be screaming for his public execution." Roman kept walking, gripping my wrist now. I could tell from his hurried steps that he was getting anxious. This did nothing to help the nerves that were beginning to swirl around in my stomach.

We were still slinking through alley after alley, heading towards, what I assumed, was the front gate. As we passed the openings to the alleyways, I could see groups of cops combing through the streets. Not many inmates were out and about in plain sight at this point, but those that were were led away by the cops. I didn't where they were taking them to and didn't really care. We just needed to focus on staying undetected if we wanted to get out of here. I would really hate to be a cop right about now though. If they had to go back and arrest all of the inmates in here, it would take hours and hours of searching through this small city and all of its buildings. There were just too many places for inmates to hide.

I looked up, Roman kept walking forward, but I stopped. _What was that? _There was a dilapidated looking dumpster pressed up against the wall of the alley. I wasn't staring at the dumpster however; I was staring at the body lying next to it. Curiosity got the better of me for the millionth time tonight and I slowly made my way towards the corpse. I didn't even notice Roman continuing to move ahead of me. As I got closer I saw that the man was barefoot, with what looked like pajama pants on, but no shirt. I looked up at his face and was confused to see his head wrapped completely in bandages. Bloody bandages. _What the hell?_

"Hey, keep up!" Roman yelled at me when he noticed me slacking a bit. I turned to look at him. He must've noticed my horrified face because he glanced around then quickly made his way back towards me. "What? What is it?"

I pointed to the body. "What's going on in this place?" I was getting tired of wondering this. No, I was getting tired of everything. I was almost out of here; I needed to keep going.

"Some things you just don't want to know." He grabbed my shoulder and guided me around to keep going. "You haven't met all of the crazies in this place tonight." He paused, "Be thankful for that." I shivered from his eerie tone.

That left me wondering, "Where are we going to go once we're out of here? And how do youexpect to just walk right out of here past a swarm of cops? They're going to have to place locked down." I was doubting this plan now; I was doubting it a lot.

"You worry too much about the little details in everything. I've found that most of the time planning does nothing but screw you in the end." I looked at his dark eyes through the holes in his mask. They reflected light from the fading moonlight. _He's lying. He has a plan, something he's not telling me._

I stepped up next to him as we continued our way through the maze of alleyways. We turned another corner. We were left in an alley far enough off to the side that no one could see us from where we were standing. We, however, had full view of the most wonderful thing I think I'd seen all night. _The gate to Arkham City. _It was wide open.

I turned to look at Roman, "So now what? Do we just stroll on over or what?" I glanced down at the gun in his hand, praying he wasn't going to be using that for anything. I looked back over towards the gate and couldn't help but let a huge smile take over my face. _I was almost free!_

Roman still hadn't answered me, so I turned around to look up at him. He wasn't even looking at me. He wasn't looking at the gate either. He was staring straight ahead out of the alley with narrowed eyes. I spun around to see what he was looking at and felt my jaw drop.

There were two uniformed policemen walking by with a man in between them. He wasn't any ordinary man though. _Is that Bruce Wayne? _Boy, Arkham City had not been kind to him. Not one bit. He was walking in a dirtied suit that I had seen him wearing when he came in earlier. That was understandable considering that this place was dirtier than a landfill. His face however was not so understandable. In fact, I was down right baffled by it. His entire face was covered in bruises and what looked to be cuts at random places. They weren't bleeding, which confused me as well.

"Looks like he's lucky to be alive." I voiced my incredulity, "I bet Bruce Wayne's never felt more out of place in his life than he has tonight."

"That's not Bruce Wayne." Roman still didn't take his eyes off of the three people. They were steadily moving towards the open gate. _Figures Bruce Wayne would be the first person they try to find in here._ I looked at him again and didn't understand Roman. That man was most _definitely_ Bruce Wayne.

"Have you ever seen Bruce Wayne? That's him. No doubt about it." He was the same man I had come in here behind a few hours ago. I would've sworn on it.

"Yes I've seen Bruce Wayne, don't be stupid." Roman growled, and I mean _growled_ at me. I was slightly taken back. I didn't know why he was so defensive about that? "That isn't him. That's another one of the crazies you haven't had the pleasure of meeting tonight." I looked back towards the maybe, maybe not Bruce Wayne, and looked skeptically back towards Roman.

"If you say so…" I mumbled. We both turned and looked back at the entrance to Arkham City. Cops were _everywhere_. I could see a man at the forefront with white hair and glasses. He looked to be in charge of everyone, pointing around and talking into a walkie-talkie.

"Commissioner Gordon. He'll be leading the cavalry into this place soon enough. I bet he got quite the surprise when he saw Batman carrying the Joker out." I looked back to the gates at this Gordon guy. He looked a little frazzled, truth be told.

I didn't know why we were still standing here if the gates were so close. I looked to Roman and saw that he was staring at the gates with a look in his eyes that told me he was doing some serious thinking. He seemed to feel my stare because he glanced down at me finally.

He simply asked, "Ready to get out of here?" I made eye contact and saw the determination in his eyes.

I knew my answer. "Ready when you are." _It's almost over._

**A/N: Only two chapters left now! I know this chapter was kind of short and not too action-packed, but the last two chapters are monsters. Also, I would still like to know everyone's opinions on a sequel! Thanks!**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Okay, my wonderful readers, bear with me here. I said from the start that I would be switching up some storylines. You'll **_**really**_** notice that in this chapter. However, they will all be crucial for the sequel, I can assure you. Please don't rip off my head or form a mob….well, enjoy! Oh and Happy New Years!**

_ There was a loud pounding against the door to the posh condo. Harper, a much lighter sleeper than her sister, came to first. Rolling on her side she checked the time on her phone: 1:37 AM. Who would be knocking on the door now? If this was some bratty kid playing ding, dong, ditch, she was going to personally chase him down and teach him a lesson. _

_ Groaning, the teenager rolled out of bed and shuffled out of the bedroom where she had been sharing one of the two queen sized beds with her sister, Channing. Violet had the other to herself. She deserved it, to say the least. Poor girl has gone through more in the past two years than anyone should go through in a lifetime_.

_She moved out into the sitting room, passed the high-end kitchen area, and then finally made it to the door. Without even checking who was standing on the other side, she swung the door open, ready to give this kid a piece of her mind. _

_ "I don't know what you think-" She began to reprimand what she thought was a misbehaved child, only to be shocked to see a man in a police uniform. She immediately shut her mouth, wondering just what was going on. She looked at the man's face and could feel her own heating up. This guy was hot! The officer was tallish, a little taller than her, with neat dark brown hair, and dreamy dark brown eyes that looked a little troubled. She immediately started smoothing her hair down, since she hadn't taken a chance to do so before leaving the bedroom. She could just hear her mother's voice now, _"A lady must always look presentable if she wishes to ever have a chance at finding a suitable man."

_"Uh, something I can help you with officer?" She asked carefully, really wondering what he was doing here. She hoped her breath didn't smell. That would be embarrassing._

_ "Are you friends with a Violet Morgan?" The officer asked straight away, confusing her even more. Why would a cop be asking about Violet at this time of night?_

_ "Yeah? We're on vacation together actually. Do you need to talk to her? I can go wake her up if you need me to. She's in the other room sleeping." What was this guy up to? She saw his expression become even grimmer as she asked him this._

_ "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to come in and talk to you." He asked politely, taking his police hat off and fiddling with it between his hands. He glanced around, looking very out of place standing in the expensive hotel's hallway._

_ She was going to move out of the way to let him in, but then, "Do you mind if I see your badge?" She didn't know who this man was, not to mention it was so late at night in a city notorious for crime._

_ He immediately complied and held it up for her to see. It looked legit enough to her, so she let him in. It wasn't like she was alone in the hotel room anyway. She locked the door behind him as he stepped into the room. Quickly, she moved over to turn on a lamp beside the black leather couch. _

_ "I'm sorry I disturbed you this late at night, but this is important." The cop said. Knowing the rules to being a hostess, Harper motioned for him to sit on the couch. He shook his head and said, "I can't stay long, I just thought I should let you know some disturbing news concerning your friend, Miss Morgan."_

_ Harper narrowed her eyes causing her platinum blonde eyebrows to scrunch together. "I don't really understand why you're here, officer…?" She trailed off, not knowing what to even address this man as._

_ He still had his hat in his hands, moving it around occasionally, "I'm sorry. I'm still new at this. My name's Officer Blake." He paused then said, "You may want to sit down. What I'm about to tell you is going to be a shock." _

_ She froze; it's never good if a cop tells you you should sit down. She'd seen enough Law and Order episodes to know that. The first thoughts that ran through her mind were that something had happened back home to Violet's parents. She prayed that wasn't the case. Poor Violet couldn't afford anything else like that happening._

_ "I'm fine standing." She bit out; she always got like this when she was nervous. Her sister called her cold when she was like this, but everyone deals with things differently. "Officer, what's going on?"_

_ Officer Blake took a deep breath before asking her something perplexing, "When was the last time you were with Violet Morgan?" _

_ "Uh, like right before you knocked on the door? I told you, she's asleep in the other bed back in the bedroom. Do you need me to wake her up so you can talk to her?" She repeated her question she had asked the man earlier. She didn't understand why he was asking her these things._

_ "Miss," Officer Blake started._

_ "My name's Harper." She shot back; she was really beginning to get worried. _

_ "Harper. Something's happened. I took your friend Violet into custody for robbery earlier this night." Now she knew why the young officer looked so grim. That was impossible though. Her sister or her would've known if Violet had left the condo. _

_ Speak of the devil, Channing suddenly appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, looking just as tired as Harper had felt just five minutes ago. "What's going on Harper?" She stopped, standing in her silky pink pajamas, staring at the cop standing in front of her sister. "What's going on?" She asked again, looking a little more alert now. Her blue eyes were darting between her sister and the cop._

_ "This officer just told me that he arrested Violet tonight because she robbed some place." Harper said seriously, looking at her twin. _

_ Channing laughed at that, "That's impossible, Violet is in bed behind me, here I'll get her," She disappeared back into the bedroom to stir Violet from her sleep in the other bed. Upon approaching the ruffled up bed, she found nothing but cold sheets, not having had heat on them for several hours now. Her heart began hammering in her chest. She hurried back out into the other room, tears leaping to her eyes now, "Harper she's gone! She's not in her bed!" She had always been the more emotional of the sisters, more high strung_

_ "I had to take her to Arkham City. The new regulations with arrests force us to send everyone there now." Officer Blake went on to explain. _

_ Harper didn't know what to do. Obviously she could call her parents. They would know what to do. They'd probably even have Violet out of there within the hour. Just as she thought this, she remembered why he said she was arrested in the first place, for robbery. _

_ Channing must've been thinking along the same lines because she said in a watery voice, "You must be mistaken. Violet wouldn't hurt a fly. She wouldn't say boo to anyone, let alone _rob _some place. It just isn't like her!" _

_ Nodding her head, Harper asked, "You're sure it was her? It wasn't just someone who happened to have her ID on them? They could've taken it off of her or something?" She just didn't understand what was going on. He had said he'd taken her into Arkham City. The whole country had heard stories about what kinds of monstrosities were locked up in there. Now little innocent Violet was in there with them._

_ Channing was a mess at this point. She moved to the table and sat down in one of the padded steel chairs, resting her forehead against the cool glass tabletop. What had Violet done?_

_ "I'm sure it was her. When I took down her information she said explicitly that she was staying here with two of her friends. That's how I knew where you were staying in the first place." His mouth was in a hard line. He expected this from the two teenage girls. He himself was only 21, still new to the force. Things like this were hard. _

_ Looking over towards the two girls, he could tell they were afraid for their friend. They should be. He felt horrible sending the young girl into Arkham City, but it was the law now in Gotham. Any new arrestees were sent right to Arkham City until their time to stand trial. Yeah right, there were no trials, not once you were in Arkham City._

_ "I'm very sorry. I'm not even supposed to be here. I wanted the two of you to know where your friend is though. People tend to go missing into Arkham and never are heard from again. I can tell that what your friend did was out of character. I'm hoping you'll use this information to work towards getting her out of there, and fast." He began walking towards the door again, passed Harper's still figure. "I have to get back out on patrol now." He said, glancing back from next to the door, where he had his hand on the doorknob, opening it up. "I hope you can get your friend out of there." He said, closing the door, figuring the girls needed to be alone._

_ The sound of the door closing jarred Harper out of her thoughts. She immediately spun around and launched herself out the door, after the officer. He was standing at the end of the hall, waiting for the elevator. "Hey! Wait a second!" She trotted after him down the hall, all thoughts of her appearance gone out the window. He was about walk through he elevator's doors when he heard her voice calling after him. He turned around to look at the frantic girl.  
>"You said you hoped we could help her. How are we supposed to do that?" She had no idea what she should do. She didn't want to mess up and cause Violet to have to stay there any longer than she had to.<em>

_ His eyes softened in sympathy for this girl. It was obvious that she cared about her friend very much. "I would let her parents know what was going on first off. She didn't tell me their names or how to reach them." She nodded; absorbing this information he was telling her. He sighed and pulled out his notepad from the inside of his jacket. Clicking a pen open, he quickly jotted down a phone number, before handing the sheet of paper to the girl in front of him, "That's the number to the police station. If you need any help with anything else, call that number. Ask for a John Blake. They'll patch you through to me." He turned around to step into the waiting elevator. _

_ Harper was still standing there staring at the handsome young cop who for reasons unknown was helping her. Maybe he was just a nice guy. She nodded at him and said, "Thank you. So much." She watched him nod before the doors closed again._

_ As soon as he disappeared out of sight, she took off at a sprint down the carpeted hallway, back towards the room. She pounded her fist at the now locked door, not really caring if she woke anyone else up, "Channing open this door!" She pounded it a few more times before it opened to reveal her mirror image._

_ She entered the room, flying past her upset sister, back towards the back bedroom. She practically ran into the bedroom, punching the light switch on in the process. She looked around for her phone, setting the piece of paper down on the nightstand. She couldn't lose that. She picked up her phone and went to her contacts, searching for Violet's parents' number. "What're we going to do?" She heard Channing ask from the end of the bed. Her sister wasn't known for her quick responses to dire situations._

_ "We're going to call her parents and let them know what's going on. They'll know what to do." She kept scrolling through her contacts, but couldn't find them. How did she not have her best friend's parents' phone number? "I don't have their number, do you?" Channing shook her head. She trusted that though. Channing knew her contacts like the back of her hand. She was always on her phone._

_ Frantically, she moved over to Violet's bag. "Look around for Violet's phone! Hopefully we'll be lucky and she didn't take it with her." She commanded. She didn't hear her sister move at first. Just as she was about to yell, she heard her sister move around the room. She tore through Violet's suitcase, but didn't find her phone. She was getting panicked. She kept telling herself she wouldn't cry. She needed to be strong for Violet. _

_ "I found it!" Channing announced from on top of Violet's bed. The phone had been nestled under the covers. "Here I'll find their number." She began scrolling through the contacts until she found one that simply read: _Mom. _Pressing send, the phone began ringing. At least her mom's phone wasn't turned off. Harper moved over to her sister on the bed. "What am I supposed to say to her?" Channing looked to her sister._

_ Deciding that she was more stable than her sister right now, Harper grabbed the phone out of Channing's loose grip and held the phone to her ear just as she heard someone say, "Violet? What's wrong? Are you alright?" Harper swallowed. Mrs. Morgan sounded worried. She'd be worried too if she got a call in the middle of the night from her only daughter._

_ "Mrs. Morgan?" She began tentatively. She was confident that she was going to be able to stay strong on the phone with Violet's mom before, but now she wasn't so sure, "This is Harper." She took a breath, thinking about how she should word this. Her heart was a hummingbird flapping around in her chest right now._

_ "Harper, what's wrong honey? Where's Violet?" The grogginess from Mrs. Morgan's voice was gone now, replaced with worry. _

_ "Violet got arrested." She decided to just get everything out in one clean sweep before Mrs. Morgan could respond, "A cop just came to our room and told us. We didn't even hear her leave the condo earlier. I'm so sorry!" She really was sorry. The Morgans just couldn't catch a break._

_ "What! What do you mean she was arrested?" She could hear her say on the other end, "Clyde wake up, Violet's in trouble!" before returning back to the receiver, "What was she arrested for?" She could hear the sheer panic in her voice now._

_ "Robbery." She wished she could elaborate, but that's all Officer Blake had told her. _

_ "Oh my. Where is she now? Is she down at Gotham's police station?" Harper could hear the frantic movement on the other end of the receiver._

_ "They took her into Arkham City." Again, that's all she knew. She heard Mrs. Morgan's sharp intake of breath. "This happened earlier in the night I think, but the cop just told us now."_

_ "Okay. Harper listen to me. If you hear anything else you call me immediately. We're on our way to Gotham now." Without saying bye, Mrs. Morgan hung the phone up. Harper couldn't really blame her. _

_ Harper lowered the phone, making sure the volume was turned up in case Violet's parents called again. She stared down at her lap. There was no chance of her going back to sleep now. She looked at Channing, who looked scared. _

_ "Harper, he said she robbed some place. What if this isn't just some mistake?" Channing asked tentatively._

_ This made Harper mad. She shouldn't doubt their best friend at a time like this, "You can't honestly think she'd do something like that? This is _Violet_ we're talking about. I mean….come on!" She stood from the bed and walked over to the balcony off of their hotel room, overlooking Gotham._

_ "I know, but I can't have been the only one to notice that she's changed ever since Liv died." Channing trailed off. She'd noticed their friend becoming even more introverted over the past year or so. That's why they took this last vacation with her in the first place. They wanted her to have some good memories before leaving for college. She definitely had enough bad ones. That worked out real well._

_ "Her sister died, Channing. Would you still be yourself if you lost me all of the sudden?" Harper's eyes burned holes into her twin sister. She knew that had been a little harsh, but she had to make her sister see. Violet wouldn't just go out and commit a crime like that. Something had to be going wrong._

_ "You're right. I'm just confused and scared." Channing paused, awkwardly looking away from her sister's intense stare. She wished she were as strong as her sister in a time like this. "I just hope Violet is alright." _

_ Harper turned away from her sister's defeated form on Violet's bed to look out the giant window that led to the balcony. It was too cold to go outside at this time of night, but she could see most of Gotham from up here. All the way across the city she could see the giant tower that was planted right in the center of Arkham City; the place where her best friend was stuck right now. _

_ She smiled softly to herself for a second before turning to her sister, "Well, if we know one thing, it's that Violet is a fighter. That alone will help her through this." She turned back to the window, staring once again at hell on earth._

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxox oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox 

The sky was becoming increasingly lighter. It looked as if it was finally dawn. Maybe it was because I was so tired, but it felt like it wasn't so cold anymore either. Perhaps the sun was the only thing that could thaw this place out.

I was aware of Roman standing close by still. I didn't know what his plan was, but I hoped he'd tell me soon. I was _very_ ready to get out of this place. As much as I hated to admit it, it was kind of a bittersweet moment. _Man, I really must be losing it._ _I blame the lack of sleep._

"So, this is it." I heard that deep voice rumble from behind me. The voice that I had grown so accustomed to tonight. I turned to see Roman staring down at me. His dark brown eyes looked a little lighter beneath the lightening sky.

"Hell of a night, huh?" I asked, smirking a little when I saw his eyes squint a bit. I took that as him smiling a little too. Like I said, it was hard to tell with that mask of his on.

"The night isn't over yet." He said, glancing back towards the front gate. It looked like the cops were getting ready to do something. We needed to act quickly. I didn't know what we were waiting for. "But it's time you leave." _Wait, what?_

"What are you talking about?" I had to have misheard him. He hadn't said it was time for _us _to leave. He said it was time for _me_ to leave. That couldn't be right.

"You heard me. You need to get out of here. You've been through enough for one night. Considering how pathetic you are, it's pretty amazing you've made it this long." He deadpanned out.

_There he goes. He just has to ruin the good moments, doesn't he?_ I shook my head, deciding that there was a time and place to get mad, but right here wasn't it. "What about you? Aren't you coming with me?" I really hoped he would. I couldn't explain it. Maybe I'd gotten just a tad attached. He _had _kept me alive the whole night, regardless of how many snarky comments he sent my way.

He shook his head, "I still have some business I didn't get the chance to finish. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I've been babysitting someone all night." He gave me a look.

I raised an eyebrow and said, "Do everyone a favor and don't _ever _become a babysitter. You suck at it." This was referring to him leaving me unattended and letting me get kidnapped.

At first I thought he was going to be mad at me, but surprisingly he started chuckling, "You're such a smart ass." He was shaking his head, awkwardly fiddling with his gun.

"Just figured that out huh?" I asked smiling and chuckling myself. I sobered up a little and said, "So you really aren't coming with me?" I couldn't mask the disappointment from my voice.

He looked at me again and shook his head, "I'd never make it past the cops. They'd take me out the second they saw me with you." He seemed almost disappointed at this too.

I chewed on the inside of my lip, thinking everything over. I knew that he was telling the truth. Not to mention it would look majorly suspicious if I walked out with him. I was kind of hoping the cops wouldn't realize I was arrested earlier in the night as it was.

"So this really is it." I said, looked back at his mask. "This'll be the last time I probably ever see you." _I hope it isn't._

He looked like he was contemplating something for a moment, and then randomly said, "Close your eyes." Now, if this had come from anybody else, I may have closed my eyes without question, but this was just weird coming from him.

"What? Why?" I eyed him suspiciously.

He rolled his eyes before threatening, "Don't make me shoot you." I narrowed my eyes at him, but closed them all the same. "Don't open them, or I swear I _will_ shoot you." I could hear the warning in his voice.

I didn't know what he was doing until I felt a pair of rough lips against my own. It took everything in my power not to open my eyes at that moment. To say that I was shocked was the understatement of the century. But before I could think too much about it, I felt him wrap his strong arms around my waist, pulling me up against his body. The kiss deepened. It wasn't raunchy by any means, just _really_ passionate. Not that I had anything to compare it to. It sent butterflies fluttering into my stomach.

It ended much too quickly for my liking. He held me against him with one arm, the one still holding the gun, while his other fixed his mask back into place, at least I assumed so. "I'll be damned. You actually listened for once." He chuckled.

I opened my eyes now to glare at him. How could he go from kissing me one second to being an ass again the next? I could tell he was just teasing me from the second I made eye contact with him. _I can't believe Eddie was right. _

"If you tell anyone about that…" He trailed off leaving the threat hanging between us. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was embarrassed. He looked away from my smirking face and back towards the gate. "Looks like it's that time." He moved closer to me again and whispered in my ear, "I'll be seeing you around."

I was going to ask what that meant, but right then he drug me to the end of the alleyway before tossing me out of it. There was a series of gunshots that rang out behind me as I landed on my hands and knees on the dirty street in front of the gate. I turned to look behind me, wondering what the hell that was all about, but Roman was already gone. The alley we stood in seconds before was deserted.

Glancing over towards the gate while getting up to my knees, I could see the cops all rising from their crouched positions. They must've hit the deck when they heard the shots. The first one to recover enough to gain his bearings was Commissioner Gordon. He started approaching me, looking alert with his gun gripped between both hands. I stood up and met his eyes, causing him to stop about ten feet from me.

"Violet Morgan?" He questioned, lowering his gun, but still looking alert. _How did he know my name?_ "Are you Violet Morgan?" He asked again, urgently now.

I tried to answer, but found that I couldn't. I just nodded my head yes. My head was still spinning from that kiss. I really was acting like a teenage girl.

"Miss Morgan, I'm going to ask you to come towards me. Can you do that? Are you hurt?" He asked while motioning me towards him with his hand. Again, I shook my head no. I wasn't hurt. At least not fatally.

I started towards this man. He looked nice enough. Definitely stressed out, but he had a kind face. A face you could trust. _That's a first tonight. _When I reached him he put his arm around my shoulder and guided me back towards the gate.

"Miss Morgan." He was talking to me again, "Violet? You with me here?" Again I answered by nodding my head. I was there. "Your parents are down at the station. They arrived in Gotham not even an hour ago. They're worried sick about you." _My parents! They were in Gotham! _This wasn't real. I had to be dreaming, knocked out in the sewer somewhere. The Commissioner motioned into the crowd of cops now, some of whom were staring at me, but most were busy with other things, and said, "If you'll head over there, Officer Blake will take you to the police station to them. Unless you'd rather go to the hospital first?" He asked as an afterthought.

"No, I want to see my parents." I sounded detached, even in my own ears. Shouldn't I be happy to be out of Arkham City? Instead, I felt uncomfortable in this sea of policemen. It was like they knew every crime I committed in there tonight. I didn't like that feeling. I was beginning to think I just didn't like cops.

I could see the Commissioner nod out of the corner of my eye before letting go of me and moving over to talk to some other cop that needed his help. Without knowing where to go or who Officer Blake was, I began wandering through the crowd of people. Wandering aimlessly.

Everything was blurring around me now. There were so many sounds surrounding me. The cops were all talking at once, some to each other, some into their radios. I could hear more sirens approaching in the distance. Not to mentions all of the cruisers had their lights on. Their red and blue rotating lights cast a glow over everyone there.

I was moving farther and farther away from the gate now, moving back through the crowd of policemen, when I heard it. I froze. My mind was playing tricks on me. It had to be. But no, I _know _what I heard. That demented chuckle. _No._

Slowly, I turned my head towards the sound. At first I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but then I saw him. I must've passed over him the first time I was scanning the crowd; he looked like any other cop here. Dressed as one of the boys in blue, complete with a shining GCPD badge on his chest. That's when I met his eyes. His demonic, crazed eyes.

He smiled that psychotic smile of his when he saw me looking at him. I closed my eyes. _My eyes are playing tricks on me. He's not alive. He can't be._ I opened them again, expecting to see him replaced by a cop like in the movies. But this wasn't a movie and he didn't disappear. The Joker was staring at me and smiling.

His make up was off his face and I could clearly see the scars next to his mouth. His tall, skinny frame was standing behind an opened car door to one of the police cars. _No one even gave him a second look here._ I thought about alerting the cops to his presence, but you know what? _It wasn't my problem._

I kept staring at him, wondering how he was alive when he pointed his forefinger and thumb in my direction. He acted like he pulled the trigger of a gun and mouthed the word, "Bang." Before smiling and shaking with silent chuckles.

Everything came back to me. The steel mill. I had almost been out of there, but the Joker shot me. I remembered that part, but before even that. I _remembered._ He had been in that room, injecting something into his arm? Had that made him better? _What could it have been? _I looked back up to where he was, but he had climbed into the squad car and started the engine. I thought about going over to it and asking just what the hell kind of game he was playing, but a hand landed on my shoulder, scaring me half to death.

"Miss Morgan?" A soft voice asked from behind me. I turned to see a brown haired officer standing in front of me. He looked vaguely familiar. I squinted my eyes and realized he was the officer who brought me into the city in the first place. "I'm glad to see you." He said, smiling kindly. _Can't say I feel the same buddy._

I didn't say anything, just turned around again to see where the Joker went. The car was gone from where it was parked. I looked around away from the gate only to see several cop cars arriving and leaving all at once. _He was gone. _That wasn't the last I would be seeing of him though.

"Miss Morgan? I'm Officer Blake. If you'll come with me, I'll take you to the station." He offered kindly. He seemed young. Around my age, but something in his eyes told me he'd been through almost as much grief as I'd been through in my life.

Nodding, I started walking with him over to a cruiser. He opened the passenger door for me and waited until I got in and buckled up before closing it. I sank back into the cloth seat, enjoying my freedom while I had it. Speaking of which, I wonder if this was the same car he brought me over in. _That would be ironic._

"We were worried we wouldn't find you when we opened the gate." He told me as he got in and started the car. He immediately cranked up the heat. Looking through the windshield, I could see the sun was clearly up now. "We were afraid of what we would find to be honest. Your parents have been down at the station since they got in town. Your friends too." That caught my attention._ Channing and Harper were both there too. _

I looked into the side view mirror outside my door. In it I could see the metal structure above the entrance to Arkham City. The same one I had seen when I entered it. It was slowly getting smaller and smaller the farther we drove. My head was pounding again, and this time I didn't think it had anything to do from that kiss.

My gaze spun towards Officer Blake, who was still busy prattling on about something or other, but his words were all blurring together now. Everything was blurring together, until finally all I saw was black. _Was this the end?_

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxox xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo x

The first thing I noticed was the smell. This would be the second time in two years that I would be waking up to that smell. _I really hated hospitals. _I kept my eyes closed, mainly because I felt like it would hurt to open them right then. I had no idea why.

"We should have told her, Clyde." That was my mom's voice, which meant my dad had to be pretty close too. They sounded like they were somewhere in the room with me. _Should have told me what, mom?_

"We didn't need to tell her anything. It would've just made things worse. Besides, we don't even know if Dr. Owens had been right." That was my dad now. Why were they talking about Dr. Owens? _I remember her. They took me to her to get examined back after the accident. She was a nice lady._

I heard my mom laugh without humor, "Worse? _Worse?_ I'm having a hard time seeing how things could get worse than this? She was arrested for goodness sake! That could've been prevented if we just told her back then." _Told me what? What the hell were they talking about?_

"No, we shouldn't have let her come to Gotham City. I knew that was trouble as soon as her friends came up with the idea. Besides, I'm not telling my daughter that some shrink thinks she's insane." My dad spit out at my mom. I heard the beeping of my heart monitor speed up. _What did he mean by that? What does that mean? _I opened my eyes to see both of my parents looking at me. They seemed just as surprised as I was at that moment. Both of them looked like hell. They looked like they hadn't slept in days and my mom looked like she had been crying.

My mom stood and hurried over to my bedside. She sat down beside me, "Oh, sweetie! Thank goodness you're all right! How are you feeling? Clyde, get the doctor in here." There's the overbearing mother I know. I watched as my dad slowly stood up, smiling at me while doing so, though I could still see the tension in his eyes, and walked out of the room.

"What happened?" I asked my mother. I was wondering how I ended up in the hospital.

"Officer Blake was on his way to the station with you when you passed out. He called us to let us know he was taking you to the hospital. I thought the worst." She gently moved a piece of hair off of my forehead. Her touch felt good. "The doctor said you weren't in any serious condition. You were dehydrated mainly," _That explained my splitting headache at least. _"but also had a concussion and a surface wound from a bullet. Did somebody shoot you sweetie?" I could see the fear in her face.

"I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." _No reason to let her know that the Joker shot me. Everyone in the country knew that man._

She took a sharp breath of air, "Well at least you weren't seriously hurt. You have some minor cuts and bruises, but other than that he said you'd make a quick recovery." She looked away as the doctor walked through the door.

"Good to see you awake, Violet. You gave us quite the scare when you were brought in." He was older than the _other_ doctor. It seemed like all doctors had to have the same amount of fake niceness in their voices. They were all the same.

I sat on the bed like a good girl as he did some standard tests, checking my vitals, all of that. I sat back in the bed as he walked out of the room. My parents went with him. Looking out the window, I only just noticed it was dark outside. _I'd have to ask my parents how long I was out for when they came back in._ Looking over to the door, I could see through the window of it. My dad was nodding his head and my mom was…_crying?_ More like sobbing really, but crying all the same.

They walked back in then, parting ways with the doctor. I looked at them questioningly. My mom sat in a chair very close to my bed. My dad sat at the bottom of the bed. "If you aren't going to tell her, Elizabeth, I will." I wasn't used to seeing my dad this serious. It was unnerving.

"Tell me what?" _This had to have something to do with what they were talking about earlier._

"Please, not now Clyde. She just woke up. Let her rest." My mom said in a watery voice. I didn't take my eyes off of my dad however. I wanted him to say it.

"No. No more waiting. I'm not having her committing any other crimes." My heart sank. _They knew._ Of course they knew, they had to have been given a reason for why I was arrested in the first place. My mom didn't argue with that one.

"Do you remember going to see Dr. Owens last year?" Had it been that long ago? I remembered the visit just fine. I nodded. He continued, "We told you that she said you were just going through the normal symptoms following the death of a loved one." He paused again. I stared into my dad's eyes, _my _eyes. "That's not entirely true." My heart was beating too fast. I felt funny. I inhaled deeply, hoping the feeling would pass. It didn't.

"We didn't know how to tell you at the time." My mom interjected, causing my dad to break eye contact with me.

"We didn't believe what we were being told. Not until last night when we got a call from one of your friends saying that you were arrested for robbery." I could see the disappointment lighting up my dad's eyes. It's funny, but at that moment I couldn't really bring myself to care all that much. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't in the wrong right now. _They were. _

"Dr. Owens said that you were suffering from depression." _I beg your pardon? I _couldn't _have heard that right._ My dad looked to my mom, who began sobbing again, "She also said that you may be suffering from dissociative identity disorder." At my confused face, he elaborated, "Multiple personalities."

This couldn't be happening. I knew my parents, my parents who were _supposed_ to love and care for me, wouldn't let some sort of disorder that a doctor warned them about manifest in me for a year without giving me medication or treatment for it.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, wondering how many lies I had been told in my life.

My father spoke again, over my mother's sobs, "We didn't believe her. We thought that we knew you better than anyone. We saw you everyday, knew how you worked. You didn't seem depressed and certainly didn't seem like you had multiple personalities to us." _Well you two aren't doctors. How could they do this to me?_

Just when I thought it couldn't' get any worse my dad said, "She warned us." I looked at him, letting him know just how furious I was at him through my eyes, "She said that you had the potential to _snap_ if you were put in a stressful situation."

My mouth was hanging open at that point. I didn't know when I opened it. I shook my head a little, and asked incredulously, "So what you're saying, is that if you would've listened to a _psychiatrist's _warning, this could have all been avoided?" _How could they do this to me?_

"Sweetie, we never thought in a million years that anything like this would happen. We thought you were getting happier. You were living with us. Nothing highly stressful ever happened in our town. We thought you'd be alright in that kind of environment." My mom managed to spit out before blowing her nose on a tissue she'd produced from her purse.

"Which is why I didn't want to let you go to Gotham in the first place." My dad spit out harshly to my mom. My mom wasn't to blame. _Both of my parents were._

"I don't think coming to Gotham was my problem, Clyde." I said harshly. My dad looked appalled after I spoke. I'd never called him by his first name before. "I think my _problem_ was the two people I'm ashamed to call my parents." Everything got quiet after that.

My dad looked pissed and my mom had finally stopped crying. I didn't feel bad for saying that. Maybe I should, but it was the truth. _They've ruined me. Let me collapse in on myself and why? So they could feel better about _themselves. _I should've never left Arkham City._

While they were figuring out what they should say, I glanced back towards the door and saw Channing and Harper standing outside of it. They looked just as tired and worried as my parents. When I made eye contact with both of them, they looked taken back for a moment. Channing was crying and Harper was staring at me in confusion. _They can't even begin to understand what I've been through._

It was my dad who spoke first, _of course,_ "How dare you speak to us like that." His voice was dangerously low. I made eye contact with him then, "We've done everything in your best interest. We didn't want you thinking that you were crazy." Then came the icing on the cake, "We were protecting you."

That's when I started laughing. At first it was a chuckle, but it quickly escalated into a full-blown booming laugh. My mom looked to my dad, not sure of what to do. Quickly, I threw the sheets off of me; luckily I had on hospital pants and a shirt. I started yanking the IV out of my arm.

"Oh, Violet, don't do that." My mother began moving towards me, but one look from me stopped her in her tracks.

Once I was disconnected from everything, I stood up. "You thought you were helping me?" I asked, spreading my arms out around me. I started laughing hysterically now, "You were _ruining _me!" I motioned at my body with my arm, "You made me what I am! It's amazing I didn't snap a lot sooner than this!"

My dad stood up and came to the side of the bed I was standing on, "Violet, you don't know what you're saying right now. You're not yourself." _Oh that was rich!_

Again, I did nothing but laugh. "I'm not myself? Maybe I'm just not the one you want me to be right now, huh?" Referring to my so called 'multiple personalities.'

"There's nothing wrong with you!" My dad yelled, getting angry again. It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself now more than anything.

"No. There's plenty wrong with me!" I shouted, moving over along the wall now, trying to get away from my parents. They both had looks of horror on their faces. "Do you want to know how many people I killed tonight?" I asked casually. I looked at both of them, smiling, while moving to pour myself a glass of water from the pitcher. I tilted it, could feel the water moving around in the glass pitcher, but nothing came out. I started fiddling with the top, trying to unscrew it.

"Here, let me honey." My mom moved over towards me, my dad trying to hold her back. As her hands came into my vision I jerked around as if a cobra was coming at me.

"Don't touch me!" I hugged the pitcher to me, trying with all my strength to unscrew the lid. _Damn thing won't come off. _It was starting to make me angry. I was hot. My whole body felt like it was getting how now. _I needed water _NOW!Spinning around, I slammed the pitcher off the wall, making the water spray everywhere along with glass. I felt the cuts on my hands even before the blood started pouring out. My dad had moved my mom away before she could get cut as well.

"Violet, stop this!" That would be my dad again.

For some reason, I found that really funny. It must've been the medication they had me on or something. I started laughing again, "Violet? Violet! Haha! I don't even know who that is? Apparently it isn't me though!" I held my hands up and shrugged. My hair was sticking to my wet face. I used my hands to push it out of my face.

I started walking away again. I just needed to walk around a little bit. I didn't like being in this room. _I didn't like being in this hospital. _I walked past the door, looked at my friends again, smiled and kept walking. I walked over to the window, still staring down my parents.

My mom looked like a deer caught in the headlights and my dad didn't look much better at that point. "I bet you wish you would've had me taken care of back then don't you?" I asked, stopping in front of the window. I looked out, wondering where Roman was; wishing he was here with me. "Or maybe you just wish I would've been killed in that accident, not Olivia. Is that it? Were you waiting for me to do myself in so you wouldn't have to look at me anymore?" I asked, wiping at my cheek. It seemed like no matter how much I wiped at my face, I kept missing the spot where the water was. Every time I'd wipe it away, there'd be some other drop of liquid that would take its place.

"You know we would never think that, baby." My mom walked over towards me slowly, carefully. _Why was she afraid of me? Shouldn't I be the one afraid of them? _

"Then why didn't you help me?" I felt deflated a little by then, not so hot anymore.

"We didn't want you to become some sedated sack of bones. We wanted you to be _you." _My mom said with tenderness in her voice. She was standing about two feet away from me now.

I tilted my head to the side at that. I started combing my fingers through my hair, trying to smooth it down. It seemed like the more and more I touched it, the messier it got. I scrunched my face up, wondering why it wasn't cooperating. I turned around to check it in the dark reflection of the window, but paused when I caught sight of myself.

I looked a damn mess. My hair was wet from what I assumed was water, but when I looked at my face, I realized the liquid was too dark to be water. I glanced at my hands and saw they were a bloody mess. Looking back at the reflection, I tenderly touched my face.

Deciding I needed to just sit down for a little bit, I turned around and slid down the wall under the widow. I brought my knees up to my chest. I could see Channing and Harper outside of the room, peering through the glass and looking at me. _Like I was some animal at the zoo, stuck in its cage. _They had horrified looks on their faces. I didn't want to look at them anymore, so I switched to my dad. He too looked horrified. He was slowly backing away from me.

That left my mom. She was the closest to me. Crouching down, she sat on her knees in front of me. She put her hand to my forehead and looked me in the eyes, "We wanted you to be _you." _

I was left looking at her, feeling tears pooling in my eyes for the first time that night. I felt like a small child at that moment. I wanted everything to be done. I wanted to be back in my bedroom in Connecticut, reading a book or surfing the Internet. I wanted to be as far away from Gotham as possibly.

Tears were freely flowing down my face when I sobbed out, "_Who am I?" _

**A/N: Well, there it is, the hot mess that used to be Violet Morgan. Hope everyone liked this chapter! I even got a little emotional when I was typing the last few parts. Anywho, this was the last chapter in the main story. The next chapter will be the last one in the story and the epilogue. But, since all of my readers have requested it, there **_**will**_** be a sequel! **


	20. Chapter 20

_Six Months Later_

_ Nope…no…. definitely not._ There just wasn't anything good on television anymore. Each channel either had some annoying talk show or something like Jerry Springer on. I didn't think I had the patience to watch something like that right now. My thumb kept steadily pressing the down button. I watched as channel after channel went by. Nothing interesting was on. Wait a second. _This looks promising._

I leant back on the couch now, bringing my hand that was holding the remote back and draping it across my stomach. I propped one leg up on the coffee table that sat in front of the couch. I had stopped on the Channel 4 news station. For months now they had been covering the Arkham City story. This didn't just include local stations either; the news from that night had gone nation wide.

This type of fiasco didn't just happen every couple of months. This was a once in a lifetime sort of story, and boy were these newscasters milking it for all it was worth. Gotham had a lot of questions that needed to be answered, and the nation was demanding them more and more everyday.

My eyes roved over the screen. They had just switched screen from a press conference with Commissioner Gordon; he had been addressing some of the _bigger _issues. The biggest question, at least in Gotham, at the moment, was figuring out the current location of the Joker's body.

"What you just saw was Commissioner Gordon, once again addressing Gotham on the whereabouts of the Joker's body. Taking it into his own hands to take care of the body was a controversial one on the Commissioner's part. Stay tuned for more details about this and more this evening on the 5 o'clock news, this is Vicki Vale signing out."

She sure was soaking up the limelight from that night. Apparently she'd been in there too, Vicki Vale, I mean. I didn't see her. Then again, I didn't see a lot of things apparently. _You saw enough._

Another newscaster came on the screen then. This one was just some other woman, whose name I didn't care to catch, "In other news…" She started going on about some shooting or other. _It's amazing anyone still lives in Gotham, with all of these shootings everyday. Things were getting worse._

I thumbed down two more channels to channel 2. They were talking about the press conference as well. This would be all that was on the television for the next week. Sighing, I leant my head back and closed my eyes. So much had happened in the past six months.

First off, people in Gotham were losing their minds. I mean that quite literally. People were getting shot over this whole deal involving the Joker's body not being released. Gordon had taken it upon himself to take the Joker's body and move it frequently from place to place so no corrupt cops or angry Gothamites would find it and mutilate it. _I wonder how many death threats that poor guy has gotten over this thing? _

This whole "thing" confused me. I wasn't really sure what to believe. Gordon _could_ be moving around a Joker body, then again, there could be _no _body. I knew the Joker was alive. Hell, I'd seen him with my own eyes. His demented smile was seared into my brain. _I should've stopped him. _Then again, what did I really care? Gotham didn't care about me, why should I care about it? _Of course, there could've been no Joker at all; it wouldn't be the first thing you've seen that wasn't real._

I had heard the rumors after that night. I knew now what had _really_ happened in that movie theater with the Joker and the Batman. It turns out that the Joker had been blackmailing Batman over some cure for a disease they were both suffering from. At least that's what I'd heard.

They'd ended up at some old movie theater in Arkham City. Long story short, Joker had been working with some guy they called Clayface. I almost laughed out loud when I'd been told about this guy. His body, made out of clay mind you, could morph into anyone at any time. He'd teamed up with the Joker to trick Batman. They had an ongoing game of cat and mouse that entire night. Props to Batman for being able to stay sane while dealing with all of these nutjobs. _Not like you could do that. _Shut up.

But anyway, I mean, come on. A man made of clay? A man who dressed as a bat and protected a corrupt city in the wee hours of the night? This whole _city _was insane. As far as I was concerned every single person in it deserved to be in Arkham. They were becoming increasingly unstable with every passing day. Every day they weren't given the Joker's body, the more bloodthirsty they became. _Let them tear themselves apart. _They deserved it. People blamed Batman for creating the Joker. That was the joke in all of this. One man didn't create the Joker. That I was sure of. _But how sure are you?_

I opened my eyes again when I heard the reporter on channel 2 mention Arkham Asylum. That was another thing that was spawned from that night. _Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane was back up and running, at least tentatively. _The island was still a hot mess, so to speak. There were giant plants in places they shouldn't be and some of the areas in the asylum were blocked off, but the main areas were still open and the buildings most easily seen had been refurbished to look nice and approachable. _If only they knew. _Apparently the leaders of the criminal justice system in Gotham realized too late that combining a mega prison and an insane asylum was a downright terrible idea. Again, bravo to Gotham.

That meant the police then had the job of tearing through Arkham City and finding, arresting, and processing every single inmate in there. That alone took almost four months, and even now, _a lot_ of inmates are unaccounted for. The lovely people of Gotham didn't quite like that either.

"I'm standing right outside of the gates of the _Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane._ The building behind me houses some of the country's most unstable criminals." The reporter paused to move aside so the camera could get a good view of the newly refurbished mansion and its grounds. "Due to his status as the head of the Arkham City operation, Doctor Hugo Strange has taken over as the head of Arkham Asylum after recovering from his injuries in the debacle that occurred in the Wonder Tower nearly six months previously." The reporter began talking again about something else, but I wasn't listening.

_Hugo Strange was the head of Arkham Asylum. _Quite frankly, I was horrified when I'd first heard the news of his appointment as head doctor at the Asylum. I was also fairly surprised that he'd actually survived his wounds. He'd been in critical condition when the police took him out of Arkham City. _That wasn't the only thing surprising. _

Somehow, and even I didn't know what had happened up in his Tower, someone had stabbed him in the chest and left him to die. He'd been wearing a bulletproof vest or something, at least that's what I'd heard, which had lessened the impact some and let him live. He crawled into some blast proof glass case, yeah I know, almost as ridiculous as a clay man, and survived the blast. That's where the police found him when they broke into the Wonder Tower. _Should've left him there to die. _Allegedly, he had been "brainwashed" by some other rogue, the Mad Hatter or something, and made to do his bidding against other criminals. I really don't know or care, but apparently that story was enough to satisfy whoever was in charge of the trial. _I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that no other psychiatrist in their right mind wanted to take the head position at this asylum. Not to mention it's no secret that Strange was one of the most revered doctors in the country before this happened. _

The reporter was still talking on the TV set, motioning to the haunted looking asylum behind her. I didn't care to listen anymore. Not now at least. I'd heard everything like a dozen times in the past week alone anyway. I stood from the couch and stretched my arms above my head. I heard something crack, but it didn't hurt, so I didn't pay it any attention.

I walked over towards the window and leaned against the wall. Glaring out through the bars towards the reporters standing at the end of the drive, just outside the front gates. I waved, wondering if I could be seen on TV. _Probably not from this far away._ Strange never let the reporters get so close as to get any patients on screen.

I'd been in this damn asylum for six months now being _rehabilitated._ After the incident at the hospital, my parents carted me off here pretty quickly. Sure, they drive in from Connecticut every Sunday for the visiting day, but I can see the looks in their eyes. _They have to force themselves to come here more and more every week._ I'd rather them just not come at all.

I hated this place. The halls were cold, the cells were cold, and the people were cold. At first, I thought I'd be thrown in with the wolves, but I was placed on a wing where the less dangerous patients were housed. I snorted at that, but turned around to make sure no one heard.

_The last thing I need is for them to think I'm talking to myself again._ I knew what happened to _those _patients. They were put into the cages. I wasn't going to end up there. Although, I wish I did have a different room. A lot of people would kill for the room I had, I was alone, for one. I also had a nice window complete with chicken wire between the glass. _Didn't want any patients taking a nosedive from a few floors up, I guess. _That window was the main reason I hated the room. It reminded me of the freedom just on the other side of it. The freedom I couldn't reach, no matter how hard I tried.

Fate could be cruel sometimes. For the most part, I knew I didn't belong here. Officially, I'd been diagnosed with clinical depression and having slight multiple personality disorder, along with a tad bit of insomnia. My parents shouldn't have been so surprised by this diagnosis; Dr. Owens had told them however long ago that I was mentally ill. _They were just too naive and foolish to believe it._

Thinking about that did nothing but fuel my anger towards my parents. I still hadn't forgiven them for lying to me. My psychiatrist told me I should, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so. I went into each family meeting thinking about what I'd say; how I would tell them that I'm sorry. Then I'd get to the meeting, sit down, see them, and all the rage would come back. It took every ounce of my self-control to sit there and not lash out against the glass. _Anger issues. _My psychiatrist told me I had some of those now too. I believed him.

I turned around and glanced at the clock: 2:28. I had two more minutes of alone time before the big guys came to take me back to my cell. Turning fully away from the window, I looked around the room. I didn't really have any friends here. I heard they had brought Eddie in a few weeks ago, but I'll never see him. He was up on the Level 9 security block. I smiled. I figured that was only because he had his own moniker. It seemed like all of the _costumed_ villains were up on Level 9.

I often wondered where Roman was. He brought in a while ago, and I had actually caught a glimpse of him at one point. It had been a month or so after I was brought in and I was headed to my therapy session when the loud speakers tuned on and announced a high security prisoner was being brought in. Not thinking anything of it, I stood with the security guard taking me to the session. We were standing with our backs against the wall when the entourage of police brought the prisoner in. Imagine my surprise when I saw his scorched black face in the middle of a police squad. I didn't know if he saw me at first but then he made eye contact with me and I knew. _I knew that everything that happened that night meant nothing. I could see the hate rolling off of him and piercing my soul. _He only made eye contact with me for a split second, but that was long enough. I think out of everything that happened in the past six months, that's the thing that hurt the most. _You're the stupid one for liking a psychotic killer. _I swear….

Penguin on the other hand wasn't in here. From my understanding however, Penguin was usually taken into Blackgate when he was arrested, not really being insane, just sadistic. I found this interesting. _How could he have gotten himself out of a stand off with the SWAT team? _

When I was first brought in, the Asylum buzzed every time a new villain was brought in, but lately the buzz had died down quite a bit. I had only ever seen one other "super criminal" and I didn't like to think about that. This one happened very quickly after I was brought in. I was "touring" the asylum with my parents (like it was just some summer camp they were sending me to for an extended amount of time) when again, the buzzing started-another high security prisoner in transit. Our guide told us to hang on for a second and wait until this was done. We were walking down a hall perpendicular to the one the prisoner was being brought down.

I didn't know who it could've been, but I was interested. I heard my parents talking behind my back. My mom was saying something about how she didn't like the idea of me being in here with a bunch of psychos. Our guide turned around to explain to her that blah, blah, blah. I didn't care, my attention was on whoever was going to be coming down that hallway. Everything slowed down when I saw a handsome man in between a few guards who were carrying guns. He looked vaguely familiar.

Almost as if he could feel me looking at him, the prisoner turned to look at me. That's when I realized why he looked so familiar. Staring at me was a half handsome, half horrifically burned face that I'd seen once in Arkham City. _Two-Face. _It was weird, now that I think about it. He stared at me a lot longer than Roman did, and it felt different too. I didn't see hate in his eyes, curiosity or something close to it maybe, but not hate. He stared at me with that same intense look he did in the museum. I couldn't look away and I didn't until I heard my mom gasp and say something rude about "that burn victim." I looked at her, looked back towards him, but he was out of sight.

"Miss Morgan, ready to go back to your cell?" A burly man asked from behind me. He was wearing a standard security guard outfit. I nodded, letting him lead me away, out of the sad excuse for a rec room. The only things in there were some books-_some crappy books-_and that TV set. There had been a few other inmates in there with me, but they all just sat around, so doped up that they couldn't focus on anything. Hence why I got control over the TV set.

I walked next to the security guard. Michael. That was his name. He was nice enough. I'd seen how some of the guards treated the other patients. I figured as long as I was on my best behavior, I had nothing to worry about. _Don't give them a reason to hate you._

We arrived at my little apartment, _that was what I liked to refer to it as_, and he held the door open so I could walk in. I stood for a second after the door closed behind me, staring at the metal-framed bed with a stiff white comforter. I lay on top of it, planning on taking a nap before my 4:00 appointment with my psychiatrist. Napping was about the only thing you could do to pass the time in this place. I always seemed to be tired these days, but could never sleep. I blamed the drugs they had me on.

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxxoxoxo

"Everyone's been telling me you've been on your best behavior lately, Miss Morgan." Dr. Milton, my psychiatrist said in his sunny tone. He always seemed to be in a chipper mood. I didn't see how, this place was about as fun as a funeral.

"Am I ever not on my best behavior, Doctor?" I asked, not in a snippy tone, but more of a bored tone. Each session was the same more or less. We'd talk about how I was feeling, then talk about the accident, and finally my night in Arkham City. He knew almost everything about what happened in that city that night.

That was another reason I abhorred Strange. He covered his pseudo city in video cameras, and boy did he cover it good. That meant not only did they get me on tape killing the Two-Face guy in the street, but they also caught me on camera in the museum killing the five guys on my way to find Penguin. _That _footage they'd salvaged from security cameras within the museum. _Wonder if they had a tape of Penguin getting shot up?_

Honestly, the only reason I wasn't locked up in some higher security unit for killing those guys was because I was a small girl who behaved well. I never put up a fuss when they came and got me for my sessions. I followed the rules. I was even nice to the other patients when I had to be. _That was all a show._

Dr. Milton chuckled a little and shook his head, jotting down something in the process. _Probably saying I'm a narcissistic bitch._ I looked at my doctor. He was young. Fresh out of school, would be my guess. After the massacre that happened here a few years ago, they were hiring some fresh doctors, and he happened to be one of them. He was handsome, in a stereotypical sort of way. Groomed. Clean shaven. Well dressed. Everything I seemed to hate now.

"Now Violet, I want to talk to you about…" I tuned him out. This was when I went into autopilot. A lot of nodding and shaking my head went on when he started asking the questions. Never did I turn into a sobbing mess when we talked about my past.

Like I said, most sessions were the same more or less. Only once did I get snippy, and I know I shouldn't have. That was when he had brought up Roman and the fact that he had left me to die several times throughout that night. Naturally, I got defensive, said some not so ladylike words, and he took the time to write a book on his notepad for that. Needless to say, I learned my lesson after that. No more emotional, defensive outbursts.

He'd been my doctor for my entire stay here so far. He liked to think we were becoming something like friends, I could tell, but that wasn't the case. I had no friends in here, as far as I was concerned. Well, minus Eddie, but I still didn't know what I considered him. Not to mention, he probably didn't even know I was in here.

"Do you blame yourself for wrecking the car that night?" My eyes shifted towards my doctor. The clouds in front of my eyes started parting. He'd asked me about the accident before, but never had worded anything like that.

"I was hit by a drunk driver." I stated, not liking being accused of killing my baby sister.

The doctor wrote something down, pissing me off more, and said, "You had been recorded saying that you and you sister had been fighting just before the accident occurred." He paused. I swallowed. "Do you think if you hadn't been fighting, you would've seen the truck coming beforehand and been able to avoid an accident?" It's when he says things like that when I really want to punch something and cry at the same time.

I can't even tell you how many times I had asked myself that since the accident. How many times I wondered if I'd been paying attention, would my sister still be alive. I didn't like the shrinks reminding me of that.

I looked into his green eyes; _he had pretty eyes at least, _and said, "I don't know. Obviously I can't go back and change the past. If I could, I would. A thousand times over." I said this honestly. I didn't want him for a moment doubting the love I felt for my sister. I think it was her memory that kept me almost sane sometimes.

Nodding his head, he looked up and stared at me, "Let's talk about what happened at the hospital." I didn't move. We'd skimmed over the details before, but nothing in depth.

"What do you want to know?" I questioned, in a monotone voice. _Don't show him emotion._

"What were you feeling at that moment?" He asked me. It was a simple enough question. A simple question that had a million answers.

I paused for a moment, "What wasn't I feeling at that moment?" He scribbled something down again. I wanted to stab that damn pen into his neck and watch his blood blend with the ink. "I was feeling hurt, betrayal, anger, sadness, it was like I was in someone else's body." There was his answer, or at least a condensed version.

"So you felt like you weren't…" He paused, but I knew what was coming, "yourself at that moment? Like someone else had taken over your body?" He looked up at me with those green eyes again. I stared back at him, not blinking.

After thirty seconds of sitting there not blinking, just staring at him, I could tell he was becoming unnerved. He was about to say something, but I cut him off, "I know what you're thinking. That my "split personality" took over right?" I kept my face as stony as I could, but there was a war raging in my mind right now. _I was pissed off._ "I can assure you doctor, there is only one person in my mind. There always has been and there always will be." I sat up a little straighter in my chair.

He took a minute to write on that damn little notepad of his again. I could feel myself slouching down again. _He doesn't believe you._ "Well Violet, you said yourself that you felt like you were in "someone else's body." That's a typical sensation for somebody with a split personality to experience. It's nothing to be ashamed of. That's why you're here in the first place, we're trying to help you with your mental disorders Violet." He was leaning forward. I guarantee he learned that in his $50,000 a year college he went to. _Always act like you are sympathizing with the patient. Be the person that they _want _to open up to._ Or some bullshit.

I didn't have any type of mental disorders. I knew I didn't. I was the same person I have always been. I still laughed and joked with my friends when they came to visit me once a month. Seeing Channing and Harper for the first time after being admitted here had been one of the best feelings I'd ever experienced in my life. It let me know that I still had people who cared about me. _My friends._

"I am not mentally ill." I said in a faraway voice. You know how you can stare at something without even looking at it, like your eyes are out of focus? That's how I felt right now. "I'm sorry if you think so, it's unfortunate." _If they want you to be insane, then show them how insane you can be. _Then, oblivion.

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Two security guards walked back to get their patient from her session. "It feels weird being back here right?" The one on the left, Michael, said to his buddy.

"Yeah. It's spooky to know what all happened here that night. I lost too many friends to that deranged clown. As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad he's dead." The other security guard, Neal, a tall and lean man, said.

"Hey, watch what you say. The walls have ears now." Michael said warningly while looking up towards one of the high tech cameras newly installed in the building.

"Oh, man, don't worry about that! You hear how he talks. He hates the psychos in this place as much as we do. Treats 'em a lot worse too…" Neal trailed off, leaving nothing but the sound of their footsteps to echo around the desolate hallway.

"Yeah, no kidding. I wonder where Wayne found a guy like that anyway?" Michael asked, rounding another corner in the process.

Neal shook his head, looking towards his fellow guard, "Didn't you hear? I guess he worked at Wayne Enterprises before this. Apparently he was real good at his job. Good enough for Bruce Wayne to lend him out anyway."

"Well, I don't know. I just wouldn't want to get on his bad side that's for sure. The guy had to have had some military training or something." They continued on, their destination now about a hundred yards away.

Another pause in their talking ensued, "Do you ever feel bad doing this?" Neal asked, this time not looking at Michael.

"What do you mean?" They slowed down slightly. "You can't think like that. You can't show _anyone_ in here your doubt. They pick up on that and they'll eat you alive for it. Some of them quite literally." Another pause; at this point they were stopped completely, "Every single one of these patients are in here for a reason."

"I know, I know. It's just, some of them don't seem that bad ya know? Like-" He nodded his head towards the closed office door where the patient they were supposed to escort back to her cell was. "-how bad could _she_ really be?"

Michael looked to the door and back towards Neal before saying, "You _do _know what she did right?" This was accompanied by a skeptical look.

"Well, I mean, I _heard_ stuff. I don't know what's all real and what's not." He ran his hand through his longish brown hair. "A lot of what I heard seems a little far fetched especially after talking to her in person and whatnot. She seems nice enough."

This earned a small chuckle from Michael, before they began walking again, "Trust me, if I've learned anything from working here, it's that the nicer the inmates act, the crazier they usually are." They finally reached the door to Dr. Milton's room. "But I know what you mean, it's hard to believe a girl like her could do that much damage after being in there for less than a day. You never really know what a person's like until they're in a life threatening situation."

"Amen, man, amen." Neal, who was closest to the door, turned the doorknob before pushing inwards on it. "Sorry for interrupting doctor, but time's up-"

The room was eerily quiet, with the vague light of the setting sun acting as the only light source illuminating the darkly colored room. The doctor was sitting in his chair behind his desk with his back towards the now open door; he was seemingly staring out the large window behind his desk.

Neal walked farther into the room, over towards their patient who was calmly sitting in the seat in front of the desk; she hadn't turned around when they entered the room. "Miss Morgan, it's time to go to dinner now." He paused at the side of the chair, waiting for her to stand up.

Michael was still standing in the doorway, one hand inching towards his walkie, the other inching towards his gun. "Dr. Milton? Everything alright?" He began moving into the room now.

Neal looked towards his partner with a confused look on his face, "What are you doing?" He laughed a little before turning back to the patient, "C'mon Violet, time to go." He motioned with his hand towards her, but got no response; she was staring forwards with a blank look on her face.

"Dr. Milton?" Michael asked, this time drawing his gun.

"Violet, come on, it's time to go." Neal was beginning to get impatient. It was odd for her to give them a hard time. He moved in front of her now, "OH! Michael, she's got blood on her!" He was in shock, staring at her blood stained Arkham Asylum issued top.

Michael glanced towards his partner, now knowing _exactly_ what to expect. He inched towards Dr. Milton, before finally reaching his chair. Glancing down at the carpet, he could see spots of discoloration; something was dripping off of the doctor's chair and onto the floor beneath.

By now, Neal had drawn his weapon and had taken a few steps back from Violet. She still hadn't moved.

Reaching his hand not holding the gun out, Michael spun the chair towards him and immediately wished he hadn't. "Get Bolton on the Walkie NOW!" He managed to tell his partner this before his hand flew up to cover his mouth.

Sitting in the chair before him was the man that used to look like Dr. Milton. He now had a pen almost completely gauged up through his right eye socket with what looked like pieces of yellow notepad papers shoved into his mouth. That wasn't the source of the blood on the carpet however. From beneath his chin to down above his pants, his stomach was completely sliced open with presumably the bloody envelope opener setting on top of his desk.

Behind him, Neal was screaming into his walkie, "NO! YOU TELL HIM IT'S AN EMERGENCY! WE NEED BACKUP IN DR. MILTON'S OFFICE RIGHT NOW!" Michael was seriously doubting what good backup would do at this point. Milton was beyond saving and as for the girl, well who knew what else she was capable of.

"Bolton's on his way now with backup." They could hear footsteps rapidly approaching from the hallway. This wasn't something that the asylum needed right now. After everything else that's happened, having one of the doctors murdered by a supposedly low risk patient would reflect horribly on them.

Michael and Neal both had their guns trained on Violet Morgan as backup was approaching. They shared a glance at each other, both of them clearly wondering how this could've happened. From the hallway they heard Bolton's booming voice yelling about the asylum being on lock down as of right now.

Their attention was directed back to the girl covered in blood when she finally moved from her frozen state. Both guards immediately trained their guns back onto her. She was still staring forward, but leant forwards, staring now at Dr. Milton.

Finally, she spoke, "I'm not who I am-not anymore, Doctor."

** A/N: And there it is folks! The end of **_**Gaining A New Mask!**_** Boy has this been a project. I'm so so so sorry for the long wait, but I hope it was worth it. I was going to post sooner, but I decided to rewrite this chapter since I didn't like the first draft that much. **

** Anyway, so as I've said, there **_**will **_**be a sequel, which I will begin writing and posting hopefully this summer. Before I begin really setting the plot into stone however I'd be more than happy to hear any ideas any of my readers have! **

** In the sequel, I was wondering if anyone would like to see Violet assume a sort of supervillian identity or any separate pairings. I'm planning on including more OCs in the sequel as well as other villains that weren't really focused on in this story. Also, since there isn't going to be a sequel to this video game-it's more like a prequel, I'm gonna have to go into unchartered territories. But no worries, I have some ideas! Oh and did anyone else hear who the main villain for **_**Arkham Origins **_**is going to be?! BLACK FREAKING MASK! Sorry, I fangirled a bit when I heard that (a bit too much).**

** So, any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated either in a review or PM! And most importantly, thank you SO much to all of my loyal readers and reviewers! I wouldn't have ever finished this story if you guys didn't keep encouraging me! Seriously, you guys are just great! **

** Until next time! **


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